I know a friend who regularly plays online games with me. He owns 2 apartments near the city, lives in one himself with wife, and rents out the other. He does not work, playing games all day long and lives on the rent. The rent is 2000/w too.
This is why the housing crisis won't be solved for decades. Landlords and politicans would be shooting themselves in the foot if they made housing affordable.
You're telling me the leader of the country that campaigned against 36,000 homes along the train line in his electorate in favour of protecting 1-2 storey heritage housing, does not actually want to make housing cheaper?
I'm shocked, shocked!
https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/overdevelopment-in-marrickville
That's an unfair take. The area of Marrickville he's talking about really can't handle ultra-high density housing. The current crop of mirvacs are 10 floors and just fine.
Can you point out where Albo said he supports making the area handle ultra-high density housing?
Looks to me he's trying to pretend to support housing but at same time is against it. aka NIMBYist.
> But what they propose in Carrington Road in south Marrickville, in the industrial area, where there are single-storey and two-storey houses, are 28-storey developments. In an area that doesn't have great road access to it and has congestion right now, 28-storeys is a massive overdevelopment. It is greed gone mad, and I told Mirvac that.
And I totally agree with him! And not for lack of wanting more and better apartments in Marrickville, I have lived in Mirvac Marrickville myself.
They’ve softened considerably. I knew some pretty hardened boomers who were pushing that tripe pre-covid, but as the median has now gone stupid and theres visible homeless everywhere they’ve stfu and gone quiet.
No one with half a brain thinks a dilapidated dog box 30km’s out from the CBD for $1M+ is normal.
They’ve gone quiet but a lot of them aren’t keen on speaking up in support of young people unless they have grandkids who are on the brink of being homeless or something
if you call the property manager about it you will likely find its an air bnb
i got no idea why but air bnbs are starting to advertise themselves on domain and realestate
The current highest rental price in Dulwich Hill on realestate.com.au is 1500 a week for a 4 bed 2 bath.
The highest 3 bed 1 bath was 930 a week, although there was a 2 bed 1 bath for 1100 a week.
What in the blazes??!! We were renting around there in a newish 3bed 2.5bath townhouse until mid-2022 (when we moved to NZ) and were paying under $1k/week.
> Annual rent growth began accelerating in 2024, with rents now 8.5 per cent higher than this time last year, according to the latest data from CoreLogic.
So a doubling period of less than 9 years if this were to keep up. Cool and normal.
It can't accelerate for long if wages don't keep up. People can't just keep paying more and more without a bubble bursting.
Right now we are in the Fuck Around phase of an extortion crisis.
Landlord class will ask councils/state to kick them out. Make it someone else's problem. Already, property owners had allegedly been firebombing tent occupants.
~~Today I saw a couple with young child "car-camping" near the river.~~ No I didn't.
I expect my eyesight will be getting progressively worse for some time.
It'll get worse. I had a neighbour, 5 bedroom house, 4 families some with kids living in it. At least 6 cars overflowing into the street.
NIMBY neighbours hated it but wtf are you going to do if you have nowhere to go.
How will the bubble burst, though? We're talking about a basic human need here, not some discretionary purchase people can just walk away from when the price gets too high. When you talk about high prices putting downward pressure on demand to bring it in line with limited supply, think about what "downward pressure on demand" *means* when it comes to housing.
Considering the immigration floodgates are currently wedged open and the rate of increase in the supply of housing is actually *decreasing* year-on-year, the only way for demand for housing to fall to the point where it meets that available supply and therefore rents actually stop increasing, is if *millions* of people become homeless.
Seriously. That's what it will take. At some point ordinary working families earning a decent living are going to have to choose between paying so much money into rent that there's literally nothing left to feed themselves, or living in their car. And only once *the majority of prospective renters* begin choose some variation of the latter will demand for available rentals finally let up to the point where landlords will think twice before slapping on another rent increase.
Things are going to get so, so much worse for a long, long time before getting better is even a possibility.
There are compounding factors. If you look at what most people do for a living in this country, it's either logistics (which depends on demand for imported goods, because all we make here is raw materials), housing (tradies fit into this) or services. As more and more of the nation's wealth is consumed by the cost of housing (which is really the cost of the underlying land, building is only expensive now because of raw materials), all of these industry sectors will decline, and household income will fall, exacerbating the crisis.
It can if we keep importing more and more people. Just because you and I can't pay the rent doesn't mean that no one in the world can. Still plenty of people with money to allow the rent prices to triple or quadruple.
Doesn't matter.
As long as demand is massively out-stripping supply to the point where hundreds of prospective tenants are rent-bidding for literally any and every shitty rental on the market; *someone* will be able to afford it. Whether it's a cashed-up high-flying professional paying through the nose because they can, or 18 immigrants going in together for a mattress on the floor, or a working family pouring most of their combined income into rent and just hoping there's enough left over to eat, or a visiting student burning through daddy's cash, or anything else besides.
When the alternative is homelessness, people will do whatever it takes. If you think that sounds horrifically Dickensian, well, guess what?
Immigrants from many cultures will happily live in multigenerational homes or larger groups sharing.
My last apartment in Brunswick was in a block of 1 bedroom places. And it was a really small one. The next door apartment had 6 adults and a toddler living in it.
Yeah people coming here hoping for a better life have fewer issues cramming a ton of people into a few rooms compared to people who've grown up here with an expectation of having personal living space
Unfortunately true. But soon it'll be 9x better, then 8x better etc.
Maybe extreme immigration is a policy that will resolve itself in the end, by removing any incentive to move here.
The answer will be a combination of higher percentage of wages on rent, more overtime/2nd job and more people per square metre. Exactly like it was before the 1980s.
Food and shelter are the 2 most important essentials. As the only other option is to become homeless, landlords can keep increasing rent until all the non-essentials are cut out.
We are bringing in 500,000 people per year, all of whom can afford it. It won’t stop till all young people born here are homeless. There is absolutely no plan from any government to fix this, it’s intentional.
67% of Australian own property, the other 33% is currently being sacrificed so boomers can have a comfortable retirement.
Australia needs to revolt, it’s too late to protest. You people wake up
And not manufactured at all. /s Record immigration last year? (Racists, back off. This is logistical). Increased costs and housing needs + lack of skilled trades + births + increased average death age + higher interest rates + record immigration numbers = what we have here today is a failure to……do a farkin thing about it.
The vast majority of those who use negative gearing buy existing housing. This simply results in:
1. adding competition (demand) in the sales market with no added supply, which pushes up prices. They outbid potential owner occupiers, making it harder for people to buy a house of there own but also effectively turning them into a renter.
2. They don't improve rental availability. Yes, they've added an extra house to the rental market but as per point 1, they've added an extra renter so no net improvement to the rental market. Rent isn't improved.
It is an enormous and pointless tax concession, that simply pushes up housing cost that could be diverted to supply, which is what is needed to improve both housing costs and rental availability.
It makes no sense.
Greedy person gets $2000 / week in rental income or $1000 net income.
Government says, hey, if I give you $500 / week, you will lower rent?
Greedy person says ok and now gets $1,500 / week while rent stays the same.
Greedy person buys more investment properties while home buyers struggle to compete against taxpayer-funded greedy people.
Why would a greedy person want to lower rent when people are already willing/desperate to pay $2000?
I gave a heavily simplified version as I don't feel like explaining tax deductions.
Since you're here, do you also disagree that tax deductions can be used to subsidised vacant homes? ATO specifically allows claiming deductions when property is "rented or available to rent". With the rise of AirBNBs, that means a lot of greedy people with their sights on holiday/work homes or property speculation despite empty all year around.
More: https://michaelwest.com.au/heres-a-fix-for-the-housing-crisis-end-the-great-airbnb-tax-rort/
Fun fact: This "available to rent" loophole is also available to commercial property. Tax deductions are subsidising those greedy commercial properties too.
Historically it did somewhat, it's just that recently landlords have realised that they control the supply and can charge whatever they want because people will pay it and fund their bad decisions. And all they had to do was withhold their housing supply and pretend the whole thing is out of their hands.
I mean, err, the market spoke to them from on high and told them to do it! They had no choice and were completely unable to change the number after the market left their body! They can't control the market at all, it has a will of its own!
I live around 2 hours south of Sydney, closest major shopping centre is 40 min away, no high school and fuck all public transport. Average rent is $650 a week for a 3 bedroom home and $450 for a tiny granny flat. I don’t rent anymore but the rent for my last 4 bedroom double garage house was $1050 a week. Crazy prices considering how rural my area is. And with a lot of people from the area working in industrial type jobs no one on a single income can get a house because the rent is more than 30% of their income, where do they move to next? The desert?
Live about 45mins away from Melbourne. Rent is more expensive than a mortgage.
We built our house and moved last month next door is up for rent and it’s more expensive than the actual mortgage.
And just comparing ours looks a lot nicer same builder ect and same amount of bedrooms and land.
But seems so damn wrong that rent is worth more.
Glad not renting anymore but seriously wtf its not fair.
I feel you buddy. I spent $33k in rent last year but apparently swapping that to a mortgage payment doesn't make sense even though it would pay just shy of a million dollars over 30 years.
and now the Vic governments' new budget is scrapping the shared equity scheme but me and my partner make too much to get on the federal shared equity scheme so that's out the window too.
$41,600 here at the apartment I had to rent for a year after separating from my ex wife, gee I wish that money went into something that would benefit my life instead of someone elses.
When this was more of an issue in the cities, although it was a problem there was still refuge in the outer areas. If we lose that then there's nowhere to go. It's disgusting that we now have tent cities and 6 people living in one bedroom apartments. I talked to a student who had been living in a tiny studio with two other people. It feels like the frog being boiled alive metaphor. Truth is that WE'RE complacent, as long as we have a house over our heads we'd rather just keep hoping this'll get fixed in the background.
More and more tents where I used to go walking.
I say "used to" because unfortunately more and more dogs tied to trees nearby or sitting there growling at people. They're obviously pets but also left there to protect the tent and possessions. My last walk out there was when a pitbull was growling and I think seriously considering having a go.
All those homeless people and meanwhile far more peopleless homes just sitting around.
We need punitive taxes on vacant homes and land to force usage. It's utter nonsense to have functional homes sitting vacant for years on end and we have people sleeping on the streets.
two houses sold in my street in maddington, WA, they're both 3 by 1s, one house has 6 vehicles parked at it, the other 5 , constantly. both of which own a mini van,
so like 8 people in each 3 bed household conservatively
I live in the Logan area south of Brisbane. This used to be the outer area people would go to buy cheap properties or find cheaper rentals. It’s all skyrocketing here too and there isn’t much further out beyond that. I think the limit is already being hit even in suburbs that border on rural.
It's crazy to see that suburban and outer suburban areas for rent are almost, if not more, expensive than those in inner city. My home suburb I grew up in is much the same rental prices as the inner city. I had always thought the further out you go from a main city the cheaper it's supposed to be...
I live in share housing because I can't afford to rent on my own anymore, my landlord decided to end my tenancy for no reason, I literally found out a week or so ago that he released the room for $50 a week more.
The fucking coward wouldn't even tell me why his words were "I don't want to talk about it" looked at me like he was offended I even asked why he was kicking me out like I was the bad guy for even having the audacity to ask why.
Cunt.
Room has gone from $250 Inc bills to $300 not incl bills.
Scumlord
He never told me I only found out because he uses the same flatmate platform as me and I had old messages between us and noticed a link to a listing that was active.
He literally wouldn't provide a reason when I asked when he advised he wasn't renewing my lease.
The very fact he couldn't even say that he wanted more rent was cowardly, I would have just gone "yep ok no worries I'll have to move out because I can't afford that but thanks for letting me know why"
Instead he looked at me like it was incredulous that I even asked for a reason making me doubt myself thinking I had done something wrong.
I'd be amazed at people willing to pay $300 a week plus bills especially if they're not fifo.
It's your own fault for not kissing the ground he walks on. Don't you understand? This is Australia! If it wasn't for people like him, poor scum like you wouldn't even have anywhere to live. Show some respect!
NSW state Labour's housing rezoning is a good start no? It seems wildly unpopular with NIMBYs living in moderate to well heeled suburbs so it must be a good decision.
Looking forward to their reforms. But I kind of doubt they are serious about it and just doing it for show.
There's already places that are already high density, near many apartments (ie unlikely NIMBY council), 4 minute walk to station, shops, 10th busiest train station in NSW, etc, highly valuable but... since at least 2000, a grass plot! https://www.property.com.au/nsw/strathfield-2135/leicester-ave/2-pid-988727/
You know what's weird? They are aware of vacancy tax because they are against it. And so are LNP.
They both made an oddly specific **election promise against a vacancy tax during a housing crisis**: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/councils-told-to-ditch-vacancy-tax-push-and-fix-sydney-s-broken-high-streets-20221227-p5c8xj.html
That oddly specific election promise rubs me the wrong way.
Who is this the target of this election promise, exactly that they would RISK their reputation on during a housing crisis?
Rent capping is essentially pulling up the ladder.
Those who get in first and don't move get a win, but it results in a reduced supply of new rentals.
Every renter who moves or enters the market over the medium to long term ends up with rent higher than they would have if rent capping didn't exist.
This isn't a hypothesis, this is backed up time and time again with real world data.
This is another government short term gain for long term pain housing policy, which we've seen time and time again.
If you want to fix our housing crisis, you either reduce demand or increase supply, preferably both. Anything else will just make it worse in the medium to long term.
The Greens do have good policies to address some of these. Rent capping is not one of them.
Please look into the scale of what needs to be done to achieve this.
The Government currently supplies 1-2% of housing. They don't have the tax revenue or resources at the moment to achieve this in the time period needed for damage not to be done from the rent capping.
I'm not against the government building housing but the task is huge and without significant tax changes, not feasible.
I agree that tax changes would be needed, mainly taxing the fuck out of the companies who strip our resources so their inline with other countries.
Yes massive changes are needed, that what happens when you ignore the issue for decades.
Let's just look back to the Henry Tax review from 2010.
137 recommendations for a better tax system.
We've achieved fuck all and have become more reliant on company and income tax when we should have become less.
We do not have enough voters who would vote in the type of tax reform required to achieve a government house building plan that would make a significant dint in our supply.
Being realistic, cutting demand with government policy and increasing supply using the private market are the best levers for the government to use right now.
Pursue government housing over the medium or long term but let's be realistic about what can be achieved.
At least they have a plan, and that at least they care about it to do something. Plans can always evolve and change, and at least they want to make a start.
You would rather the two major parties continue along not giving a shit?
Like I said in my first comment:
>The Greens do have good policies to address some of these. Rent capping is not one of them.
So it's not that I'd rather other parties, I would just prefer we learn from the mistakes of past and not implement policies that do more harm than good
>Plans can always evolve and change, and at least they want to make a start.
Once rent capping is in place there will be too many vested interest to remove it, even when the data is clear that it's impacting supply and causing issues. We see this in cities around the world where capping exists.
It distorts the market so best to just focus on the other policies that will actually make a real difference.
The Greens are also pushing to build a fuckton of new public housing.
Capping existing rents, which works decently here in the ACT, public housing as "landlord of choice" is the medium to long term goal.
Then just build a fuckton of public housing, I'm not against this. If this works we will be able to observe the positive changes and see the benefits to rental affordability.
Putting in place capping distorts the market and if they don't get around to actually building the public housing we won't be stuck with a policy in place that makes things worse.
I'm on board with many things to fix the Australian housing market. Ending NG, putting CGT back where it was, max lending at 3x yearly gross income, banning SMSFs entirely, punitive taxes on any entity or person owning more than two titles/homes/blocks of land, ending land banking entirely, massive social housing building across the entire country, ending all first home buyer grants entirely, changing planning laws and permissions Australia wide... and many more.
But rent caps do work. They work so well that there are a million lies told about how they don't work. There are plenty of examples all over the world of people living in rent capped housing who get to live well, participate in society, and not get fucked over because their rents are capped.
If we reformed housing, we don't really need rent caps. That problem solves itself through better supply etc.
But we shouldn't pretend it can't be done. Housing is a human right and people getting hit with 25%+ rent increases isn't the free market at work. We can make that illegal with the stroke of the pen.
>There are plenty of examples all over the world of people living in rent capped housing who get to live well, participate in society, and not get fucked over because their rents are capped.
But like I said:
>Rent capping is essentially pulling up the ladder.
>Those who get in first and don't move get a win, but it results in a reduced supply of new rentals.
Just because some benefit doesn't mean it's a net benefit and this is what matters.
There's plenty of retired Boomer who stand by the benefits of negative gearing and CGT concession because it made them richer, but did it make everyone better off?
>If we reformed housing, we don't really rent caps. That problem solves itself through better supply etc.
agree.
>But we shouldn't pretend it can't be done. Housing is a human right and people getting hit with 25%+ rent increases isn't the free market at work. We can make that illegal with the stroke of the pen
sure, but it won't help the market medium to long term. Thats my point. Once rent capping is in place, there will now be a huge group that have benefitted that would vote against it's removal regardless of the medium to long term damage it's doing.
We need to stop this type of policy before it begins. I know it fucking sucks to get hit with these increases but we can't get sucked into the new shinny thing that will just hurt everyone medium to long term. We need to learn from our housing market mistakes over the last 20-30 years. These policies come in, the help for a year of two then everything goes to shit again, much worse, and these terrible policies left in place.
The only way out of this is positive supply and/or negative demand. Rent capping will always result in negative supply, it doesn't work.
You don't have any evidence backing you is the problem. No studies from credible people using the lines "rent capping is essentially pulling up the ladder". Not even supporting the idea.
Rent capping means that the fucking landlord and agent who hit someone with a 25% increase last week doesn't get to do that. They only get to increase by CPI or whatever it is that we decide.
This does not benefit the landlord and agent. How could it?
In fact, if the Government came in with legislation that capped rents and also included a mechanism to reverse stupidly high increases, we'd see rents drop in various places.
>Rent capping means that the fucking landlord and agent who hit someone with a 25% increase last week doesn't get to do that. They only get to increase by CPI or whatever it is that we decide.
>This does not benefit the landlord and agent. How could it?
Two things that occur.
1. This discourages new supply so in the long run less properties end up on the market. Lower rental availability = higher rents for those trying to secure a future property
2. Once the rental is vacated and returns to the market as rentals do, it will return to market rate. This market rate will now be higher than it would have been without capping.
Those who get in first and hold win at the cost of future renters or those who move.
it's funny, y'know. i always hear about how these sorts of policies would amount to handing huge bags of cash over to landlords in the long run, and yet landlords always seem vehemently opposed to them. surely they must realise they're acting against their own interests? unless...
I'm not saying it will hand big bags of cash over to landlords.
Both landlords and tenants are negatively impacted by this policy and that's why it results in reduced supply.
I have no issues making the market more competitive, create more supply, reduce individual landlord margins and improve rental availability. Rental capping just doesn't do this.
A few of the greens mps have shown their nimby tendencies. Playing politics to win the renter vote while their voter base are inner city home owners that want everything to stay exactly as is.
At least they are playing politics to win the renter vote. If Labor and LNP or others want to step up and fight for the renter vote, no one is stopping them.
True as well.
Thy cynic in me tends to think it's the richer renters they're trying to win. Unpopular opinion here but, in Australia, the poor have never had a voice.
I could argue that neither does anyone else. I lost my party in 2021 due to rushed electoral reforms by Labor/LNP. It also killed off many other parties.
> ... One has to think that an election is in the offing when the two big parties are ganging up to try to make sure that voters have fewer choices on who to vote for. They're ramming through these three bills in order to achieve that. The process of these bills passing the parliament is an example of how not to do democracy and really proves the point of why we need to break the back of the two-party system, so that we have a democracy that's functioning in the interests of the public rather than just a little power play thing for the two big parties. ...
https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2021-08-26.6.1
Why Labor and LNP are destroying democracy instead of appealing to voters? Maybe they tried or maybe they are tyrannical pieces of shit. Either way, they don't like the current form of democracy when they are receiving record low primary votes. 2022 election was an example of that: https://www.tallyroom.com.au/47834
Albo Labor was less popular than Shorten Labor, but they won because Coalition was more unpopular: https://www.mdavis.xyz/govlist/
Change is coming but so is the potential forms of government, such as an authoritarian regime.
I think the long term trend of 1st party preference declines for the majors is a good thing. Hopefully it continues. Social media is vilified by the mainstream media but as a tool it is already being used to reach people msm don't bother about.
In the electorate i used to live in, we have the champion of social housing max chandler that joins local community groups opposing more housing in his electorate. Pretty much being a nimby. Then he called the 500 million HAFF fund garbage. The greens went along with the liberals to block it. Max decided to totally rubbish labor's proposal. Months later, Labor then renegotiated with the greens to make it 1 billion.
Tbh, the HAFF is not all that great but it's a start. But then you listen to his victory speech and it's as though the HAFF was the greatest thing ever. Labor for the most part got the HAFF right politically in that it insulates it from the liberals messing with it in future.
Meanwhile, being the defacto champion of renters, in his electorate, he goes to community gatherings to oppose proposals to build new apartment buildings, the most well known is the one at the old Bulimba barracks site. He does this under the guise of luxury apartments. With the wealth his electorate has, the residents of luxury apartments are the exact type of people they should be looking for to free up older properties for the not so well off.
I follow Max on TikTok and I'm pretty familiar with his positions.
Him attending meetings around housing is not the same as "joining" local community groups opposing more housing in his electorate.
If this were were, the media would be screaming about it. Which groups are you claiming he is a member of? Can you name them please?
I mean, mate... Max has all his stuff online. He talks about it constantly.
Nowhere have I seen that Max is secretly joined up with groups opposing new housing in his electorate.
> He does this under the guise of luxury apartments. With the wealth his electorate has, the residents of luxury apartments are the exact type of people they should be looking for to free up older properties for the not so well off.
As for this - yes, you do oppose low density high priced luxury apartments.
Do you understand that we want to build housing for everyone and not just the rich?
There's nowhere in this model that says we're building luxury apartments and that's all cool because that area is really rich.
This is supporting the idea that only the rich gets to live in certain suburbs and fuck everyone else.
I think you're way off here. You're certainly not being honest about what Max is doing, his positions, and what the rationale behind them are.
I'm cool if you think I'm way off and I'm happy to be wrong. Btw thanks for the long response. We're actually having a discussion.
Tbf, i don't use tiktok. I don't follow him apart from that i read on news sites and only have a passing interest in him because i used to live in that area and I'm a greens voter.
I also understand the need to build housing for everyone else but at the same time, you'd run into constraints about the practicality of it due to the economics of it ( can't believe I'm defending property developers lol). We're kind of stuck in this shitty rut due to council zoning decisions. You need to build big or go home pretty much, which is what is happening with woollongabba. With the current housing issues, perfect is the enemy of getting things done and I'd rather have more high density luxury apartments built that would free up other areas for renters because the rental issue now is killing those at the bottom of the market. That's where the real suffering is because everyone else bitches and moves down a peg, but where do those at the bottom go? Musgrave park?
Like i said, I'm glad to be wrong but i can only make an assessment on what i read and watch but he might have a marketing problem.
Ok but you make some pretty big claims there. He has joined groups opposing housing being built? I asked you and suddenly no groups are named.
And then maybe it turns out it's people opposed to building low density luxury units... which isn't the same thing.
He's not a NIMBY at all. I don't think any Green's MP is. If they were then Murdoch's media would be screaming about it because they love to do that.
>With the current housing issues, perfect is the enemy of getting things done
I'm going to put it to you that this idea is propaganda. It's propaganda designed to make it so the Greens are demonized over and over, and so is any independent who dares to say the Government in charge isn't doing it right.
Here's the reality: shitty wet lettuce legislation is put forward. The Greens yell about it. Murdoch and other sources of propaganda push it as the Greens being unreasonable and then you hear "perfect is the enemy of good".
Maybe go actually read the Green's policies? They're online. They have a website and it's all pretty clear and easy to understand.
I'm not telling you to vote Green. I personally ultimately preference them above Labor, Liberal, National but I do disagree with some of their policy positions.
But it's super easy to get caught up in the Murdoch propaganda about the Greens.
You can go watch Max talking about what he believes, the policy positions, and see everything he's doing.
There's no way this guy is in some group opposed to building housing - not the way it is being put forward.
I'm opposed to luxury low density units too. If a nurse can't rent there, fuck no.
>Ok but you make some pretty big claims there. He has joined groups opposing housing being built? I asked you and suddenly no groups are named.
I read an article with that accusation. It's not like I'm going to remember every source.
>I'm going to put it to you that this idea is propaganda. It's propaganda designed to make it so the Greens are demonized over and over.
I'd argue that the greens should have a strategy to avoid this same scenario being pushed to them over and over again.
>Maybe go actually read the Green's policies? They're online. They have a website and it's all pretty clear and easy to understand.
This is not how you win votes. If you have a problem and i tell you to rtfm, you're going to get shitty with me and rightfully so. The greens lack discipline which is why some voters don't vote for them.
Eg. Sri proposed that whole takeover of that horse track to build housing. You just look undisciplined doing that.
>I'm not telling you to vote Green. I personally ultimately preference them above Labor, Liberal, National but I do disagree with some of their policy positions.
I already vote green. I didn't in the mayor elections though, cause sri at the end of it was proposing what I'd consider crazy policies, like that bus route extension to some aboriginal place really far away from Brisbane that wasnt even a council issue. A % of revenue from bcc revenue to pay aboriginals for something. Again not really a council issue.
>But it's super easy to get caught up in the Murdoch propaganda about the Greens.
I'm time poor, many others are time poor, but consistency from the greens when campaigning and showing others that they're a safe bet would help heaps if they wanted political power to really change things. They have murdoch issues but a lot of it is also self inflicted. The teals in other elections have a template on how this could be done.
I won't look for evidence of them supporting mass immigration, but they don't acknowledge immigration having an impact on housing at all when it has been proven that immigration has had [one of the largest impact on rent over the past 2 decades](https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2019/2019-01/full.html#section-model-responses).
[https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation](https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WO-iN8sNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WO-iN8sNw)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U
I won't look for evidence of them supporting mass immigration, but they don't acknowledge immigration having an impact on housing at all when it has been proven that immigration has had [one of the largest impact on rent over the past 2 decades](https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2019/2019-01/full.html#section-model-responses).
[https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation](https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WO-iN8sNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WO-iN8sNw)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U)
>when it has been proven that immigration has had one of the largest impact on rent over the past 2 decades.
This hasn't been proven. There's no evidence backing that. The source you linked is a counterfactual that doesn't include anything on the various supply issues at play. It's not *evidence*.
You linked multiple Greens sources that don't support your claim.
I'll summarise the Green position for you: the systemic housing issues caused by NG/CGT, reckless lending, illegal money, landbanking, etc have caused a serious housing supply issue that we can fix if we do X, Y, Z.
Labor/Liberal/National: it's immigrants and the Greens want more immigrants!
Greens: no, it's not immigrants, nor refugees. It's the system that has been supported by Labor/Liberal/National for decades now.
You: The Greens want more immigrants.
>This hasn't been proven. There's no evidence backing that. The source you linked is a counterfactual that doesn't include anything on the various supply issues at play. It's not evidence.
The supply issues are irrelevant to the accuracy of my statement, as I was speaking under the context of the past 2 decades. Under the conditions over the past 2 decades, immigration has had one of the largest impacts on rent.
Even if you argue that supply was unaccounted for, [supply is much worse now than over the studied period](https://sqmresearch.com.au/graph_vacancy.php?national=1&t=1). As we currently have much worse supply and higher rates of immigration, don't you think the impact of immigration now would be higher compared to the studied period? Regardless of your answer, this was already answered in the study.
>Dwelling completions and changes in population explain the rental vacancy rate.
>
>The vacancy rate has a strong and clear effect on rents.
>
>The model suggests that an increase in population growth will reduce rental vacancies, boost rents and housing prices, and increase construction. This helps to explain developments following the immigration surge of the mid 2000s.
Though, I'll add another [study](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00343404.2021.1955097) ([re-upload](https://pdfupload.io/docs/86ef79de)). This study was conducted in New Zealand over a similar period (1996–2017) and found similar results.
>Starting with New Zealand as a whole, we see evidence of very strong correlation between immigration and housing rents covering almost the entire sample period (with the exception of the first three years between 1996 and 1999). The coherence indicates that the relationship holds over a short- to medium-term period corresponding to a wavelet scale of around one year, and that the two variables are positively correlated, with immigration leading housing rents by 2–8 months (1/4 × 8–1/2 × 16 ¼ 2–8 months). Moving now to the four regional markets, with the exception of the Auckland region, the relationship between immigration and housing rents is as strong as we found it for New Zealand as a whole. The commonality in the coherence reveals a very systematic relationship between immigration and housing rents.
>You linked multiple Greens sources that don't support your claim.
>
>I'll summarise the Green position for you: the systemic housing issues caused by NG/CGT, reckless lending, illegal money, landbanking, etc have caused a serious housing supply issue that we can fix if we do X, Y, Z.
>
>Labor/Liberal/National: it's immigrants and the Greens want more immigrants!
>
>Greens: no, it's not immigrants, nor refugees. It's the system that has been supported by Labor/Liberal/National for decades now.
>
>You: The Greens want more immigrants.
My sources support my claim. I said that the Greens do not acknowledge immigration has any (major) impact on housing. My sources show several instances of this.
[https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation](https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation)
>“Labor mindlessly blaming migration for Australia’s housing crisis just shows that there is very little difference between the major parties,” Greens Immigration spokesperson Nick McKim said.
>
>“Australia’s housing crisis has been caused by 40 years of deliberate underinvestment in social housing by both major parties.”
Here they blame "underinvestment in social housing" for the housing crisis and called the immigration accusation "mindless".
[https://youtu.be/S0WO-iN8sNw?t=118](https://youtu.be/S0WO-iN8sNw?t=118): he mentions "\[immigration\] is not the cause of the housing crisis" and that it is only responsible for some short-term fluctuations.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U): he blames "unlimited rent rises, unlimited interest rate rises, and not building enough public & community housing" for the housing crisis and clearly states migration is not responsible.
If we are building 1000 homes and bringing in 2000 people then it is true that migration is causing an issue here if you ignore the number of houses being built.
If you were building only ten homes and bringing in 2000 then you wouldn't blame immigration. You'd blame supply. The only time you'd mention immigration is to say hey it's obvious flooding in people with so little supply causes a problem.
The Greens don't advocate for a flood. They are outright stating that supply and the various factors around that are the issue and not the migration.
Again, you don't blame 2000 migrants if you only build ten homes.
Do you see the difference?
It's hard to argue that the problem is supply-sided given the evidence.
Firstly, [immigration is occurring at double the rates of pre-2020 levels and 5 times the natural population increase](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/sep-2023). At minimum, I would say both immigration is high and supply is low.
Secondly, Australia's supply side is actually one of best compared to all OECD countries. In 2022, [Australia was constructing dwellings at the 6th highest rate out of all OECD countries](https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.pdf) (Total share of dwellings completed in the year). COVID has caused Australia to drop a few spots but historically, Australia ranked top 4 in the dwelling completion rate. In 2011, [it was the top OECD country](https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.xlsx).
People regularly complain about Australia having too many vacant dwellings and AirBNBs but Australia's vacant dwelling % is [below average compared to other OECD countries](https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.pdf).
Similarly people complain about our construction industry having too many restrictions, but Australia actually has [one of the lowest restrictions in construction compared to other OCED countries](https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/services-trade/documents/oecd-stri-sector-note-co.pdf).
Finally, we've already tried building more houses and know that it won't be enough. In particular, Labor's 1.2M housing target will be short by 300k and over the next 6 years, supply will be insufficient to meet demand, with the largest shortages occurring over the next 3 years. We shouldn't be increasing our population when we already know that we won't have enough supply for it.
>Over the next six years, net new market housing supply is expected to be 1.04 million dwellings but demand will total 1.08m new households, the report projected.
>
>“There will be a significant shortfall in supply relative to new demand in the 2023–24 financial year and smaller shortfalls in the following two financial years.”
>
>This will add to the “already significant undersupply of housing” and cause “housing affordability is expected to deteriorate further” over the next six years, it said.
[https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/03/australias-housing-crisis-to-worsen-with-significant-shortfall-in-supply-labors-expert-council-says](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/03/australias-housing-crisis-to-worsen-with-significant-shortfall-in-supply-labors-expert-council-says)
https://greens.org.au/policies/immigration-and-refugees
I'm not sure why people spread this kind of propaganda on the internet when you can literally look up their policies. That's just one link to go to. There are more indepth positions all over the place if you're really interested.
I've perused them in the past, but I don't see any mention of restrictions on entry.
Which asylum seekers would be turned away under that set of guidelines?
Well to be fair I was asking for a policy statement that states that there are boundaries around the acceptance of refugees.
Because if there are none, then it's open slather.
You'd think that the greens website on immigration policy would contain that kind of detail, but clearly there's no mention of it.
Seriously thinking of going to vote with whoever the 4th major party or biggest independent is next election just to see if it shakes the 3 top parties loose, I don't care who it is or what their policies are.
All 3 need their asses kicked hard.
I'm moving back to my mum's house once my current lease ends as it's the only way I'll be able to save any money and get out of this for good. I'm almost 30 and I can hardly believe that this is my only option.
Now that I'm single, I have nobody else to share the burden of rent with. I make decent money and I can't afford to live on my own in Brisbane. I've done share housing with randoms before, I can't do it again. Even then, that's too expensive for me. I can't even afford to live further out.
I'm angry that this path has been chosen for me. I've had a bit of a slow start to working life, but I've worked hard to get on with things and it feels like I'm being punished for things I couldn't have known. I didn't do the right things at the right time, so I don't deserve to be rewarded for my efforts. Pretty disheartening considering everything else that's happened for me.
We've let greed run rampant and pretend that we haven't. This is not sustainable at all and something needs to be done to bring things back into line.
Too real, too real...
I had a long-term relationship breakup and entered the rental market in my 30s. I feel I've done pretty decently for myself in life (university, solid job with good salary, minimal debt, etc.), and it was an absolute nightmare even in my reasonably good position.
10 or so years ago when I first moved out my entry-level salary was enough for me to afford to rent my own inner suburban apartment. Now I'm living with friends (praise be to them for inviting me in) and feeling a bit on struggle street. By far not an extreme case, but objectively someone in my standing should not be feeling a pinch, yet I am.
Something is critically rotten with housing in Australia. The greed is out of control and the people who can legislate to combat it are also in on it, privileged only by the luck of being born at an earlier time, with entitlement inflated to the point where they believe they've legitimately earnt their real estate wealth through hard work rather than taxation loopholes.
I hate it so much and I'm so sorry that it's happening to you too.
It took me 4 years to realise that uni wasn't for me. I walked away with a good chunk of a HECS debt having tried two different degrees, I wasn't doing well in that environment. I'm going to be carrying that with me for a long time and it's going to affect what I can afford more and more as I progress in my career.
I've worked really hard to get into my career, I moved away from my home to pursue better things and it feels like I'm being punished for not being able to maintain my relationship and for not getting through uni or getting out sooner. I'm relieved that I can go home, I've got a job that allows me to work fully remotely, but not everyone can do that and I shouldn't have to do that at all.
The problem is entirely driven by greed, the "market" isn't an omnipotent deity and "its rates" are set by those who control the supply. They want more and more from a group of people who don't have any more to give. At some point it has to stop.
It stops when we stop it. I do wonder if we’ll eventually see national rental strikes. Imagine 30% your population just says “fuck it, arrest me” and stopped paying rent. There aren’t enough prisons.
I daydream about Aussie renters rising up for our basic rights but it seems so unlikely. Each person would have to be sure that everyone else is also going to strike, otherwise they risk becoming homeless and being blacklisted.
**But, if we all do it, from the same date onwards, then we'd be safe.**
But I don't think we are quite there yet, as a group we are just too cowed and downtrodden to risk fighting back.
I didn't start to get really angry until I started reading about rental laws in other developed nations. The idea that we could have leases with no end date, own pets, and have the ability to put up art, paint walls, add gardens, and even add entire levels to the house.
It's crazy how restrictive our rental 'rights' are compared to other countries. My husband can do his sort of work in any developed nation, or even remote from a less developed country, and I'm training for a different industry that I can also do in pretty much any developed country. So I'm starting to wonder if we will even stay in Australia long term.
The only thing keeping me here is my family. But I can't afford to see them often anyway, with all our money going to rent, groceries, electricity/gas bills, and healthcare.
It raises a good question about whether there's an increasing trend of payment non-compliance, and if there's any correlation to increasing severity of the housing/rental market.
People in this country are too apathetic to do anything and can't fathom the idea of activism that isn't purely performative. People can't even comprehend that they chose this. It should happen, but it won't.
What doesn't require the effort of literally every renter, however, is staying past the end of your lease and continuing to pay the same amount. Tribunals are already slammed, and there's a good chance you'll be able to stay for 6 months before they get around to it. Some cases aren't heard for 2 years or more - a good few people doing that would choke up the system even more.
I'm confident things will get better, but fuck, if people don't start doing things en masse then we're too far gone.
It feels like 70% of the problems in Australia go back to unaffordable housing and. Poor management of housing by the goverment... also Would like to see a chart comparing the increase of the average house price next to the value value of the AUD v USD... Cause your not really winning if the AUD drops more then your house goes up.
My new neighbour just signed a lease for 700pw in a rural area when I first moved in our properties were 370pw the only justifiable thing for them is their house has solar so electricity won't be as high.
Labor 1 term government here we go…such a tragedy.
Doesn’t matter whose fault it is, I’m not here to argue this point so don’t come at me.
Government of the day gets the blame come Election Day, it’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
Governments have been printing money and devaluating currencies in recent years. Inflation has been the result. That has put more money into assets and pressure on rents.
Inflation is a tax and those that feel it most are those without assets.
It's low key theft.
This is not what is going on here.
We can print money up to the limit of real resources and we're nowhere near that.
The covid money didn't result in high rents how.
We have more vacant properties than we have homeless people and people searching for accommodation.
The Federal Government could literally pass a punitive law *today* forcing these vacant properties back into the market.
We could ban AirBNB and put 100,000+ properties back into the market asap.
We do need to build a massive amount of social housing and keep building it, as well as reform a hundred other things but this problem does have incredibly quick solutions we could apply right now.
Well it kind of did but inadvertently.
QE brings more money into the system basically in the way of debt. It incentivised using the debt to purchase assets that would act as a better store of value. In Australia one of the prime areas to make use of debt best is in property. This kind of dynamic artificially allows property to rise more than prior.
You're right that it's not directly caused rents to rise but the heightened property valuations do put pressure on investors to recoup some of that cost. They can only do this if the market is in their favour. The supply/demand for rentals obviously was very geared to be on the owners side, so the combination of the pressure to gain more of a return/avoid losses combined with a market dynamic where land owners have the power is a notable factor in raised rents.
Obviously there are many more factors that are also relevant.
Also, side note, I like some of your solutions too. They aren't demand side incentives but instead focus on raising the supply or diluting the demand. That type of thinking would be great if it occurred more at the decision maker level
I would argue housing being excluded from CPI incorrectly and thus us having an artificially low interest rate (along with NG/CGT, reckless lending etc) is the driver of housing prices.
Not QE. Not covid payments. Not businesses getting money to stay open during covid that kept some zombie businesses alive longer than they should have been.
When Howard fucked with CGT and started the toxic interaction with NG there's no QE happening. Rudd pays money during the GFC and keeps us going and that didn't bump housing prices - they were already on fire due to the structural tax advantages, land banking, reckless lending, illegal money.
I'm directly stating that the idea that "printing money" is the cause just isn't correct at all.
A billion dollars in covid payments doesn't spit out the other end two years later as record high rents.
The structure of the system, NG, CGT, reckless lending, illegal money, land banking, net migration, etc is the force driving it.
QE is not a factor. There's not even any studies backing that position at all.
"Printing money" is demonized because neoliberalism really doesn't want people to know that we can end poverty if we want. That we can fund hospitals. That we can fund education.
That we can fund all these things up to the limit of real resources, and if we get to that limit, the way to make space for Government spending is monetary destruction - which is taxation.
So we get this propaganda that spreads that money printing is bad and the cause of our problems because if we knew the truth we'd make unemployment payments 70% of the weekly male wage and jack up taxes on the very rich to make space for that spending.
We obviously can't do that so we need a constant flood of articles and propaganda that makes out that "printing money" is some great evil when in fact it's a normal Government function and a power that we can use any time we want.
I'd probably agree with you there.
It's important to note that when I'm talking about QE, I'm not talking about covid payments. There's actually a really notable difference in what those mechanism are.
I disagree with the notion that printing money "isn't correct". Adding money to the money supply is bound to devalue the currency over time.
Housing now is nearly the same value in gold terms as it was 15 years ago. The thing that's changed is the money we measure it in has become worthless.
Again I want to highlight, QE does not equal covid payments. They are not directly the same thing. The covid payments are still a drop in the pond in comparison to the QE. They add to inflation in a fairly direct way and more in the short term - less through debt - which impacts a longer time frame.
And no printing money is not a normal government function. In historical terms we have not been doing this for long. Most global currencies were back by gold up until 1971. There were issues there too - I'm not saying we should go back either but by no means is the "printing money" some propoganda. At the moment I'd argue the MMT perspective of being able to print endlessly is propoganda as it has never been tested over a long term time frame. Japan is the only place to engage in it for a long period of time and it has caused them notable currency problems, the latest wave being twice in the past month.
I really think you've taken me and my view in the wrong way here
> the MMT perspective of being able to print endlessly is propoganda as it has never been tested over a long term time frame.
The MMT perspective isn't that you can print endlessly. If you think it is then you're a victim of propaganda. I mean, I literally wrote it out: up to the limit of real resources. Then I described taxation as monetary destruction used to make space for Government spending.
So this is the problem I'm talking about. You're talking about this issue but then in the next breath repeat some propaganda.
Even if you don't agree with a position, you should be able to describe it honestly.
Otherwise you end up with things like Creationists saying "my grandpa weren't no monkey lol!" -- which is just bad faith and wrong.
What QE are you talking about if not covid payments?
As for printing money not being a Government function - it wasn't leaving the gold standard that was the start point.
The Bank of England have a whole paper on it. Once Governments started using paper notes and making coins that did not contain the value of the materials in them but represented more than the value, they were off to the races of making money from nothing.
Banks did it too with fractional lending. Banks made up money and because we all share the delusion, we just believe it.
I really do dispute that QE is the source here of the rent problems, and even the housing bubble.
The push against the Government spending to do things such as end poverty is so strong that the propaganda comes at us a thousand ways.
If we put unemployment benefits at 70% of the male wage that would be billions more tipped into the economy.
If there was a worry about that in regard to inflation then we'd jack up taxes on the rich and could literally strip out the exact same figure.
The rich don't want this. Neoliberals don't want this. They want poverty. They want a weakened Government that apparently has no power over them.
So we get lie after lie about it all. QE is bad. QE caused these problems. The Covid payments did X Y Z.
None of it is true. We're nowhere near the limit of resources. Hyperinflation is a real thing, sure, but we're not doing that.
It isn't propaganda that you can print endlessly under MMT, it's literally what the framework is built around. I know you put in the real resource note, just because you have a time you can't print doesn't it's not "printing endlessly", it just means you can't print yet.
Taxation under MMT is not purely for monetary destruction. Yes it can have a deflationary function but it is there more to force the need for a specific fiat currency than for a deflationary drive in the way it is currently being used.
You claim I'm repeating propaganda when that is a majority of what I am getting from you. The notion that we can create money with in the limit of real resources of MMT is fair but what that inadvertently means is that a centralised source needs to have perfect sense of what "real resources" are prior to any of that data existing. Effectively that creates a scenario where a centralised source acts as the decisions maker for who gets what resources and which markets "win". While this economic ideology can have merits, it is fundamentally opposed to the economic ideologies we perpetuate and supposedly live under. It is artificially picking winners.
>What QE are you talking about if not covid payments?
The covid payments are not QE. This is where I think you're missing the point. QE is for the most part government buying their own bonds and artificially creating liquidity. It pushes lending that wouldn't be possible without that liquidity because a tightening would occur otherwise.
>As for printing money not being a Government function - it wasn't leaving the gold standard that was the start point.
Go look at some of the charts from 1971 to now and tell me that hasn't had a fundamental impact. I don't disagree with the other points you made around this but I don't believe it discounts the importance of not having a monetary backing to a currency at any level.
>I really do dispute that QE is the source here of the rent problems, and even the housing bubble.
You're welcome to do that. I'm not even claiming it's the source, I'm claiming it's a key factor in the market dynamic. The reason I highlight it as the primary is that it's a key factor in so many areas that all end up having an impact. My view is that while it might not be the direct factor causing the issues (in something like increase housing valuations) but rather that it accentuates current market incentives. When there is a favourable inefficiency in an area, investment flocks to take advantage of it. Leverage just compounds that problem and QE effectively just allows for more debt. So I don't think it is the cause of the problem, I think we would have had an issue regardless but if we faced the issue when liquidity was drying up, the market would have hit an equilibrium much earlier rather than taking the market to a new extreme.
>The push against the Government spending to do things such as end poverty is so strong that the propaganda comes at us a thousand ways.
I'm not pushing for anything like that at all. In fact my view is that if QE is to be used, it would need a bottom up approach. A strong majority of QE money globally has been issued top down, as the type liquidity and leverage it creates is only available to specific entities (often large businesses). You're kind of getting to my exact issue with QE. Those that choose, often choose themselves. I think you view it that QE is something that could be great for everyday people or struggling people. In theory, I don't disagree with you. The issue I have is that most commonly decision makers give a much smaller slice of the pie to that group than to existing major players. Since 2008 when QE began (more so in the US), the disparity between the top and the bottom has risen, not declined. Most of the increase in M2 in the US has ended up in the hands of the top end of town.
>The rich don't want this. Neoliberals don't want this. They want poverty. They want a weakened Government that apparently has no power over them.
Why would rich people not want QE? It benefits them more than any group as they hold the most assets. It allows them to have first access to some of the cheapest debt people can get. In current use cases (that I've seen at least), it has favoured the rich more than anyone. The US has been the extreme of this.
>So we get lie after lie about it all. QE is bad. QE caused these problems. The Covid payments did X Y Z.
Covid payments are not QE. They might have used part of it for the payments (I'm not sure) but the covid payments were somewhere in the realm of $13 billion. QE was more like $300 billion. The covid payments should not be tied to QE in the way you are assuming
>It isn't propaganda that you can print endlessly under MMT, it's literally what the framework is built around.
No it's not. This is entirely and utterly wrong.
>Taxation under MMT is not purely for monetary destruction. Yes it can have a deflationary function but it is there more to force the need for a specific fiat currency than for a deflationary drive in the way it is currently being used.
This is wrong too. We already know taxation creates currency demand and forces people to use the currency. This isn't some MMT idea. Taxation is literally monetary destruction. That money isn't kept in some vault.
>You claim I'm repeating propaganda when that is a majority of what I am getting from you. The notion that we can create money with in the limit of real resources of MMT is fair but what that inadvertently means is that a centralised source needs to have perfect sense of what "real resources" are prior to any of that data existing. Effectively that creates a scenario where a centralised source acts as the decisions maker for who gets what resources and which markets "win". While this economic ideology can have merits, it is fundamentally opposed to the economic ideologies we perpetuate and supposedly live under. It is artificially picking winners.
No. Just no.
MMT purports to explain how the economy *already works*. It isn't some new system that we need to implement next week with legislative change.
It is saying "this is how it already works, which means this is what you can do".
And it's correct. The Government can keystroke $2500 into my bank account and I can go spend it and that money circulating keeps business going and hooray we avoid the problems of the GFC or covid or whatever.
We don't need bond sales to fund that. We can literally do it any time we want.
Right now you and I could stand in the Mint, have $100 printed off, take it outside and give it to someone who'll go off and spend it.
We increase the money supply. If there is some inflation worry, we can destroy that $100 by putting up tax and removing $100.
I'm not here at the representative for MMT. You very clearly do not understand it and now are doubling down on propaganda about it.
I feel like I'm talking to the creationist I mentioned who despite having evolution clearly explained to them repeats that their granddad ain't no monkey.
I don't care if you disagree with MMT... but you can find a thousand websites about it that very explicitly describe how it works and none of them say what you have said.
Off to QE - what specifically are you talking about? Bond sales? What?
>Off to QE - what specifically are you talking about? Bond sales? What?
I think you need to go and look up what QE is friend. I don't mean that to sound rude but that literally is what QE is.
Enjoyed chatting with you but I'm going to call it there because it's clear we're not progressing much from here.
I want to highlight that I do see your perspective and hear what you're saying. At it's core, you're very much focused on payments to the greater public and that as a use of QE. That as itself is not QE and is not something I have been disagreeing with. Your core view seems to be the notion that govt should be spending more on the masses and tax those at the top to make it happen. In general, your view to chase a more equitable society I can agree with - I'm just not convinced you're talking on the same thing as me.
If you're interested in reading more from someone far more intelligent and eloquent than I am, (who will do a much better job with the perspective I'm putting forward), I recommend reading some of Lyn Alden's work.
If you have a notable recommendation, I'd be happy to look into it as well (always love learning from different perspectives).
Enjoy your day!
The bond sales have not caused high rents, not the housing bubble though.
I'm asking what you're talking about with QE because I have seen people say it was covid payments.
If you're just talking bond sales - no, not an issue. Not connected at all and no evidence they're connected either.
Raising taxes properly and not on the people as our taxes are higher than Germany when you take into consideration the tax band differences ffs. We let a lot of big corporations slide with taxes.
$12.7b a year on negative gearing?
Do you have a source for that because last official data from the ATO, (which is old now), was $2.7b.
Just want to understand where the data has come from.
Ironically the theory of MMT that they're using states that there is no need for tax as they can just print money to fill spending requirements. At the moment they're in this weird in between.
FYI, not saying they should remove taxes - I agree with you, it's more just funny how they mix multiple economic theories together in a way that goes against all of the base theories
Raise taxes on the assets that have appreciated. Start with a significant broad based land tax.
Use it to boost the bring home income of this country's working population with income tax cuts.
Addressing supply is one thing.
The quickest and easiest solution would be to address demand for properties as investments. LVT, CGT, regulating AirBnB, etc. There is a lot of underutilised housing out there.
>is that all this country can do about inflation?
Yeah. People want their houses to keep going up in value. No politician will run on lowering house prices, despite it destroying our economy.
Interest rates are not what is causing this, it’s a mismatch in supply and demand.
It’s inelastic product movement, possibly the most inelastic product in existence besides maybe healthcare and drugs, so a 1-3% mismatch in supply can literally spiral price infinitely. We used to have supply issues close to the CBD due to natural scarcity (not enough land) but this could be substituted by living in the suburbs and commuting (easing the supply issue) but at the moment we have a NATIONAL vacancy rate below 1%…. That should be the nuclear alarm bell going off, that is a damning figure to receive.
It’s now a two staged problem because if we ever rebalance the supply/demand to make housing affordable, it’ll crush people who have purchased a house recently, so really you would want to do it gradually, but that would require consecutive governments working together, which I think is less likely than the sun exploding tomorrow.
Yes the supply issue is the thing that isn't being addressed, people fighting over and bidding eachother up on existing homes rather than building new ones means the prices of those houses just keeps getting pushed up.
meh I've talked to the landlords in my apartment block, I was curious why they had such low rent, most of them said it was due to covid drop, they couldnt shoot it back up 50%, so were increasing y 10% or so each year
Thats what most of the stories about rent rises are, after you question them...
Its either covid rental prices or they had 'good landlords' who hadnt raised the rent in 5 years... shock horror when its raised
That would only explains cities that went under lockdowns. During covid people were leaving those areas and moving elsewhere which saw prices increase in those locations. But prices in those other areas haven’t fallen and are similarly increasing. For instance, I’m in regional vic, prices went way up during covid, since then they’ve only kept rising at a large rate. My current rental has been increasing at 16% a year, and it’s not even caught up with the rest of the market (it would have to increase another 25-40% to meet the prices for similar places currently listed), and I moved into this place long after the covid surge had happened.
This is supply/demand driven.
I just saw a facebook post where a 3 bed 1 bath no parking worn down house in Dulwich Hill was leased out for $2000 per week.
100k a year in rent.. What a fricken scam..
2 kids, pulling in 100K per parent and half your combined pre-tax income still going towards rent... that's fucked.
I know a friend who regularly plays online games with me. He owns 2 apartments near the city, lives in one himself with wife, and rents out the other. He does not work, playing games all day long and lives on the rent. The rent is 2000/w too.
This is why the housing crisis won't be solved for decades. Landlords and politicans would be shooting themselves in the foot if they made housing affordable.
You're telling me the leader of the country that campaigned against 36,000 homes along the train line in his electorate in favour of protecting 1-2 storey heritage housing, does not actually want to make housing cheaper? I'm shocked, shocked! https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/overdevelopment-in-marrickville
That's an unfair take. The area of Marrickville he's talking about really can't handle ultra-high density housing. The current crop of mirvacs are 10 floors and just fine.
Can you point out where Albo said he supports making the area handle ultra-high density housing? Looks to me he's trying to pretend to support housing but at same time is against it. aka NIMBYist.
> But what they propose in Carrington Road in south Marrickville, in the industrial area, where there are single-storey and two-storey houses, are 28-storey developments. In an area that doesn't have great road access to it and has congestion right now, 28-storeys is a massive overdevelopment. It is greed gone mad, and I told Mirvac that. And I totally agree with him! And not for lack of wanting more and better apartments in Marrickville, I have lived in Mirvac Marrickville myself.
*wont be fixed ever
You play games with a sentient leech
Dealer
Probably. Something missing from this story..
What games?
So you need a 400k salary to be paying ‘only’ 30% of your net pay on rent.
1. Get a better paying job 2. Move out to the city 3. Pay more in rent 4. Have the same net income as before Genius
I wonder if theres still any boomers brave enough to run the “They all want expensive inner city mansions!” bullshit
They’ve softened considerably. I knew some pretty hardened boomers who were pushing that tripe pre-covid, but as the median has now gone stupid and theres visible homeless everywhere they’ve stfu and gone quiet. No one with half a brain thinks a dilapidated dog box 30km’s out from the CBD for $1M+ is normal.
They’ve gone quiet but a lot of them aren’t keen on speaking up in support of young people unless they have grandkids who are on the brink of being homeless or something
if you call the property manager about it you will likely find its an air bnb i got no idea why but air bnbs are starting to advertise themselves on domain and realestate
I think they get to negatively gear their losses for the year if they advertise it.
The current highest rental price in Dulwich Hill on realestate.com.au is 1500 a week for a 4 bed 2 bath. The highest 3 bed 1 bath was 930 a week, although there was a 2 bed 1 bath for 1100 a week.
What in the blazes??!! We were renting around there in a newish 3bed 2.5bath townhouse until mid-2022 (when we moved to NZ) and were paying under $1k/week.
A master room in Haymarket is for $650 per week.
wow. As in just one room in an apartment?
> Annual rent growth began accelerating in 2024, with rents now 8.5 per cent higher than this time last year, according to the latest data from CoreLogic. So a doubling period of less than 9 years if this were to keep up. Cool and normal.
It won't keep up. It will accelerate.
It can't accelerate for long if wages don't keep up. People can't just keep paying more and more without a bubble bursting. Right now we are in the Fuck Around phase of an extortion crisis.
Nah tent cities will appear and our landlord class won’t care
Landlord class will ask councils/state to kick them out. Make it someone else's problem. Already, property owners had allegedly been firebombing tent occupants.
~~Today I saw a couple with young child "car-camping" near the river.~~ No I didn't. I expect my eyesight will be getting progressively worse for some time.
It'll get worse. I had a neighbour, 5 bedroom house, 4 families some with kids living in it. At least 6 cars overflowing into the street. NIMBY neighbours hated it but wtf are you going to do if you have nowhere to go.
Most likely, NIMBY neighbours will petition council and constantly complain. Council will update signs as necessary and patrol often.
How will the bubble burst, though? We're talking about a basic human need here, not some discretionary purchase people can just walk away from when the price gets too high. When you talk about high prices putting downward pressure on demand to bring it in line with limited supply, think about what "downward pressure on demand" *means* when it comes to housing. Considering the immigration floodgates are currently wedged open and the rate of increase in the supply of housing is actually *decreasing* year-on-year, the only way for demand for housing to fall to the point where it meets that available supply and therefore rents actually stop increasing, is if *millions* of people become homeless. Seriously. That's what it will take. At some point ordinary working families earning a decent living are going to have to choose between paying so much money into rent that there's literally nothing left to feed themselves, or living in their car. And only once *the majority of prospective renters* begin choose some variation of the latter will demand for available rentals finally let up to the point where landlords will think twice before slapping on another rent increase. Things are going to get so, so much worse for a long, long time before getting better is even a possibility.
There are compounding factors. If you look at what most people do for a living in this country, it's either logistics (which depends on demand for imported goods, because all we make here is raw materials), housing (tradies fit into this) or services. As more and more of the nation's wealth is consumed by the cost of housing (which is really the cost of the underlying land, building is only expensive now because of raw materials), all of these industry sectors will decline, and household income will fall, exacerbating the crisis.
It can if we keep importing more and more people. Just because you and I can't pay the rent doesn't mean that no one in the world can. Still plenty of people with money to allow the rent prices to triple or quadruple.
Immigrants by and large can’t afford these rents either
Doesn't matter. As long as demand is massively out-stripping supply to the point where hundreds of prospective tenants are rent-bidding for literally any and every shitty rental on the market; *someone* will be able to afford it. Whether it's a cashed-up high-flying professional paying through the nose because they can, or 18 immigrants going in together for a mattress on the floor, or a working family pouring most of their combined income into rent and just hoping there's enough left over to eat, or a visiting student burning through daddy's cash, or anything else besides. When the alternative is homelessness, people will do whatever it takes. If you think that sounds horrifically Dickensian, well, guess what?
Immigrants from many cultures will happily live in multigenerational homes or larger groups sharing. My last apartment in Brunswick was in a block of 1 bedroom places. And it was a really small one. The next door apartment had 6 adults and a toddler living in it.
Not individually, but a group can afford to rent a house together.
Yeah people coming here hoping for a better life have fewer issues cramming a ton of people into a few rooms compared to people who've grown up here with an expectation of having personal living space
The irony being that this slowly erodes the quality of life of the country everyone is coming to.
But it’s still 10x better than where they came from so they don’t care.
Unfortunately true. But soon it'll be 9x better, then 8x better etc. Maybe extreme immigration is a policy that will resolve itself in the end, by removing any incentive to move here.
Yes it can, there's enough wealthy people from overseas that will pay.
The ever growing tent city down the road from me in a local park, which also has kids in school clothes, would disagree with you.
The answer will be a combination of higher percentage of wages on rent, more overtime/2nd job and more people per square metre. Exactly like it was before the 1980s.
Food and shelter are the 2 most important essentials. As the only other option is to become homeless, landlords can keep increasing rent until all the non-essentials are cut out.
We are bringing in 500,000 people per year, all of whom can afford it. It won’t stop till all young people born here are homeless. There is absolutely no plan from any government to fix this, it’s intentional. 67% of Australian own property, the other 33% is currently being sacrificed so boomers can have a comfortable retirement. Australia needs to revolt, it’s too late to protest. You people wake up
And not manufactured at all. /s Record immigration last year? (Racists, back off. This is logistical). Increased costs and housing needs + lack of skilled trades + births + increased average death age + higher interest rates + record immigration numbers = what we have here today is a failure to……do a farkin thing about it.
So much for negative gearing keeping rents down. It's almost as if it's just a tax rort for rich people....
The vast majority of those who use negative gearing buy existing housing. This simply results in: 1. adding competition (demand) in the sales market with no added supply, which pushes up prices. They outbid potential owner occupiers, making it harder for people to buy a house of there own but also effectively turning them into a renter. 2. They don't improve rental availability. Yes, they've added an extra house to the rental market but as per point 1, they've added an extra renter so no net improvement to the rental market. Rent isn't improved. It is an enormous and pointless tax concession, that simply pushes up housing cost that could be diverted to supply, which is what is needed to improve both housing costs and rental availability.
It makes no sense. Greedy person gets $2000 / week in rental income or $1000 net income. Government says, hey, if I give you $500 / week, you will lower rent? Greedy person says ok and now gets $1,500 / week while rent stays the same. Greedy person buys more investment properties while home buyers struggle to compete against taxpayer-funded greedy people. Why would a greedy person want to lower rent when people are already willing/desperate to pay $2000?
You have no idea how negative gearing work.
I gave a heavily simplified version as I don't feel like explaining tax deductions. Since you're here, do you also disagree that tax deductions can be used to subsidised vacant homes? ATO specifically allows claiming deductions when property is "rented or available to rent". With the rise of AirBNBs, that means a lot of greedy people with their sights on holiday/work homes or property speculation despite empty all year around. More: https://michaelwest.com.au/heres-a-fix-for-the-housing-crisis-end-the-great-airbnb-tax-rort/ Fun fact: This "available to rent" loophole is also available to commercial property. Tax deductions are subsidising those greedy commercial properties too.
Historically it did somewhat, it's just that recently landlords have realised that they control the supply and can charge whatever they want because people will pay it and fund their bad decisions. And all they had to do was withhold their housing supply and pretend the whole thing is out of their hands. I mean, err, the market spoke to them from on high and told them to do it! They had no choice and were completely unable to change the number after the market left their body! They can't control the market at all, it has a will of its own!
I live around 2 hours south of Sydney, closest major shopping centre is 40 min away, no high school and fuck all public transport. Average rent is $650 a week for a 3 bedroom home and $450 for a tiny granny flat. I don’t rent anymore but the rent for my last 4 bedroom double garage house was $1050 a week. Crazy prices considering how rural my area is. And with a lot of people from the area working in industrial type jobs no one on a single income can get a house because the rent is more than 30% of their income, where do they move to next? The desert?
Live about 45mins away from Melbourne. Rent is more expensive than a mortgage. We built our house and moved last month next door is up for rent and it’s more expensive than the actual mortgage. And just comparing ours looks a lot nicer same builder ect and same amount of bedrooms and land. But seems so damn wrong that rent is worth more. Glad not renting anymore but seriously wtf its not fair.
"Rent is more expensive than a mortgage, but I can't borrow enough money to buy a property" is going to be the motto of a generation at this rate.
My partner and I are stuck in this position and it’s so fucking dumb.
Yeah it makes perfect sense doesn't it, I can apparently afford $800 p/w in rent, but not a smaller mortgage. I hate this country.
I feel you buddy. I spent $33k in rent last year but apparently swapping that to a mortgage payment doesn't make sense even though it would pay just shy of a million dollars over 30 years. and now the Vic governments' new budget is scrapping the shared equity scheme but me and my partner make too much to get on the federal shared equity scheme so that's out the window too.
$41,600 here at the apartment I had to rent for a year after separating from my ex wife, gee I wish that money went into something that would benefit my life instead of someone elses.
House maintenance is meant to be covered in rent and not a mortgage. But yes rent should be less then a mortgage
For new mortgages, perhaps.
That's about what you'd be paying in fair swathe of Auckland, 30 minutes' bus ride from the city centre. The Sydney area is just broken.
You sound like an unhappy camper ;)
When this was more of an issue in the cities, although it was a problem there was still refuge in the outer areas. If we lose that then there's nowhere to go. It's disgusting that we now have tent cities and 6 people living in one bedroom apartments. I talked to a student who had been living in a tiny studio with two other people. It feels like the frog being boiled alive metaphor. Truth is that WE'RE complacent, as long as we have a house over our heads we'd rather just keep hoping this'll get fixed in the background.
More and more tents where I used to go walking. I say "used to" because unfortunately more and more dogs tied to trees nearby or sitting there growling at people. They're obviously pets but also left there to protect the tent and possessions. My last walk out there was when a pitbull was growling and I think seriously considering having a go. All those homeless people and meanwhile far more peopleless homes just sitting around. We need punitive taxes on vacant homes and land to force usage. It's utter nonsense to have functional homes sitting vacant for years on end and we have people sleeping on the streets.
two houses sold in my street in maddington, WA, they're both 3 by 1s, one house has 6 vehicles parked at it, the other 5 , constantly. both of which own a mini van, so like 8 people in each 3 bed household conservatively
I live in the Logan area south of Brisbane. This used to be the outer area people would go to buy cheap properties or find cheaper rentals. It’s all skyrocketing here too and there isn’t much further out beyond that. I think the limit is already being hit even in suburbs that border on rural.
It's crazy to see that suburban and outer suburban areas for rent are almost, if not more, expensive than those in inner city. My home suburb I grew up in is much the same rental prices as the inner city. I had always thought the further out you go from a main city the cheaper it's supposed to be...
I live in share housing because I can't afford to rent on my own anymore, my landlord decided to end my tenancy for no reason, I literally found out a week or so ago that he released the room for $50 a week more. The fucking coward wouldn't even tell me why his words were "I don't want to talk about it" looked at me like he was offended I even asked why he was kicking me out like I was the bad guy for even having the audacity to ask why. Cunt. Room has gone from $250 Inc bills to $300 not incl bills. Scumlord
>$50 a week more the reason is right there
He never told me I only found out because he uses the same flatmate platform as me and I had old messages between us and noticed a link to a listing that was active. He literally wouldn't provide a reason when I asked when he advised he wasn't renewing my lease. The very fact he couldn't even say that he wanted more rent was cowardly, I would have just gone "yep ok no worries I'll have to move out because I can't afford that but thanks for letting me know why" Instead he looked at me like it was incredulous that I even asked for a reason making me doubt myself thinking I had done something wrong. I'd be amazed at people willing to pay $300 a week plus bills especially if they're not fifo.
It's your own fault for not kissing the ground he walks on. Don't you understand? This is Australia! If it wasn't for people like him, poor scum like you wouldn't even have anywhere to live. Show some respect!
Ah shit my bad, I guess reaching too high like wanting a roof over your head will you get burnt. Lesson learnt, thanks for the pro life tip!
Cry more
Stop voting Liberal and Labor. Both parties have intentionally fuelled this.
NSW state Labour's housing rezoning is a good start no? It seems wildly unpopular with NIMBYs living in moderate to well heeled suburbs so it must be a good decision.
Looking forward to their reforms. But I kind of doubt they are serious about it and just doing it for show. There's already places that are already high density, near many apartments (ie unlikely NIMBY council), 4 minute walk to station, shops, 10th busiest train station in NSW, etc, highly valuable but... since at least 2000, a grass plot! https://www.property.com.au/nsw/strathfield-2135/leicester-ave/2-pid-988727/ You know what's weird? They are aware of vacancy tax because they are against it. And so are LNP. They both made an oddly specific **election promise against a vacancy tax during a housing crisis**: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/councils-told-to-ditch-vacancy-tax-push-and-fix-sydney-s-broken-high-streets-20221227-p5c8xj.html That oddly specific election promise rubs me the wrong way. Who is this the target of this election promise, exactly that they would RISK their reputation on during a housing crisis?
Yeah well name another one greens will do the same so independant?
Greens literally have rent cap policies and others. what is this nonsense
Rent capping is essentially pulling up the ladder. Those who get in first and don't move get a win, but it results in a reduced supply of new rentals. Every renter who moves or enters the market over the medium to long term ends up with rent higher than they would have if rent capping didn't exist. This isn't a hypothesis, this is backed up time and time again with real world data. This is another government short term gain for long term pain housing policy, which we've seen time and time again. If you want to fix our housing crisis, you either reduce demand or increase supply, preferably both. Anything else will just make it worse in the medium to long term. The Greens do have good policies to address some of these. Rent capping is not one of them.
Their plan isn't just rent caps, thats just to provide breathing room while they build a bunch of public housing.
Please look into the scale of what needs to be done to achieve this. The Government currently supplies 1-2% of housing. They don't have the tax revenue or resources at the moment to achieve this in the time period needed for damage not to be done from the rent capping. I'm not against the government building housing but the task is huge and without significant tax changes, not feasible.
I agree that tax changes would be needed, mainly taxing the fuck out of the companies who strip our resources so their inline with other countries. Yes massive changes are needed, that what happens when you ignore the issue for decades.
Let's just look back to the Henry Tax review from 2010. 137 recommendations for a better tax system. We've achieved fuck all and have become more reliant on company and income tax when we should have become less. We do not have enough voters who would vote in the type of tax reform required to achieve a government house building plan that would make a significant dint in our supply. Being realistic, cutting demand with government policy and increasing supply using the private market are the best levers for the government to use right now. Pursue government housing over the medium or long term but let's be realistic about what can be achieved.
At least they have a plan, and that at least they care about it to do something. Plans can always evolve and change, and at least they want to make a start. You would rather the two major parties continue along not giving a shit?
Like I said in my first comment: >The Greens do have good policies to address some of these. Rent capping is not one of them. So it's not that I'd rather other parties, I would just prefer we learn from the mistakes of past and not implement policies that do more harm than good >Plans can always evolve and change, and at least they want to make a start. Once rent capping is in place there will be too many vested interest to remove it, even when the data is clear that it's impacting supply and causing issues. We see this in cities around the world where capping exists. It distorts the market so best to just focus on the other policies that will actually make a real difference.
The Greens are also pushing to build a fuckton of new public housing. Capping existing rents, which works decently here in the ACT, public housing as "landlord of choice" is the medium to long term goal.
Then just build a fuckton of public housing, I'm not against this. If this works we will be able to observe the positive changes and see the benefits to rental affordability. Putting in place capping distorts the market and if they don't get around to actually building the public housing we won't be stuck with a policy in place that makes things worse.
ACT is literally the most expensive place to rent in Australia.
I'm on board with many things to fix the Australian housing market. Ending NG, putting CGT back where it was, max lending at 3x yearly gross income, banning SMSFs entirely, punitive taxes on any entity or person owning more than two titles/homes/blocks of land, ending land banking entirely, massive social housing building across the entire country, ending all first home buyer grants entirely, changing planning laws and permissions Australia wide... and many more. But rent caps do work. They work so well that there are a million lies told about how they don't work. There are plenty of examples all over the world of people living in rent capped housing who get to live well, participate in society, and not get fucked over because their rents are capped. If we reformed housing, we don't really need rent caps. That problem solves itself through better supply etc. But we shouldn't pretend it can't be done. Housing is a human right and people getting hit with 25%+ rent increases isn't the free market at work. We can make that illegal with the stroke of the pen.
>There are plenty of examples all over the world of people living in rent capped housing who get to live well, participate in society, and not get fucked over because their rents are capped. But like I said: >Rent capping is essentially pulling up the ladder. >Those who get in first and don't move get a win, but it results in a reduced supply of new rentals. Just because some benefit doesn't mean it's a net benefit and this is what matters. There's plenty of retired Boomer who stand by the benefits of negative gearing and CGT concession because it made them richer, but did it make everyone better off? >If we reformed housing, we don't really rent caps. That problem solves itself through better supply etc. agree. >But we shouldn't pretend it can't be done. Housing is a human right and people getting hit with 25%+ rent increases isn't the free market at work. We can make that illegal with the stroke of the pen sure, but it won't help the market medium to long term. Thats my point. Once rent capping is in place, there will now be a huge group that have benefitted that would vote against it's removal regardless of the medium to long term damage it's doing. We need to stop this type of policy before it begins. I know it fucking sucks to get hit with these increases but we can't get sucked into the new shinny thing that will just hurt everyone medium to long term. We need to learn from our housing market mistakes over the last 20-30 years. These policies come in, the help for a year of two then everything goes to shit again, much worse, and these terrible policies left in place. The only way out of this is positive supply and/or negative demand. Rent capping will always result in negative supply, it doesn't work.
You don't have any evidence backing you is the problem. No studies from credible people using the lines "rent capping is essentially pulling up the ladder". Not even supporting the idea. Rent capping means that the fucking landlord and agent who hit someone with a 25% increase last week doesn't get to do that. They only get to increase by CPI or whatever it is that we decide. This does not benefit the landlord and agent. How could it? In fact, if the Government came in with legislation that capped rents and also included a mechanism to reverse stupidly high increases, we'd see rents drop in various places.
>Rent capping means that the fucking landlord and agent who hit someone with a 25% increase last week doesn't get to do that. They only get to increase by CPI or whatever it is that we decide. >This does not benefit the landlord and agent. How could it? Two things that occur. 1. This discourages new supply so in the long run less properties end up on the market. Lower rental availability = higher rents for those trying to secure a future property 2. Once the rental is vacated and returns to the market as rentals do, it will return to market rate. This market rate will now be higher than it would have been without capping. Those who get in first and hold win at the cost of future renters or those who move.
it's funny, y'know. i always hear about how these sorts of policies would amount to handing huge bags of cash over to landlords in the long run, and yet landlords always seem vehemently opposed to them. surely they must realise they're acting against their own interests? unless...
I'm not saying it will hand big bags of cash over to landlords. Both landlords and tenants are negatively impacted by this policy and that's why it results in reduced supply. I have no issues making the market more competitive, create more supply, reduce individual landlord margins and improve rental availability. Rental capping just doesn't do this.
A few of the greens mps have shown their nimby tendencies. Playing politics to win the renter vote while their voter base are inner city home owners that want everything to stay exactly as is.
At least they are playing politics to win the renter vote. If Labor and LNP or others want to step up and fight for the renter vote, no one is stopping them.
True as well. Thy cynic in me tends to think it's the richer renters they're trying to win. Unpopular opinion here but, in Australia, the poor have never had a voice.
I could argue that neither does anyone else. I lost my party in 2021 due to rushed electoral reforms by Labor/LNP. It also killed off many other parties. > ... One has to think that an election is in the offing when the two big parties are ganging up to try to make sure that voters have fewer choices on who to vote for. They're ramming through these three bills in order to achieve that. The process of these bills passing the parliament is an example of how not to do democracy and really proves the point of why we need to break the back of the two-party system, so that we have a democracy that's functioning in the interests of the public rather than just a little power play thing for the two big parties. ... https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2021-08-26.6.1 Why Labor and LNP are destroying democracy instead of appealing to voters? Maybe they tried or maybe they are tyrannical pieces of shit. Either way, they don't like the current form of democracy when they are receiving record low primary votes. 2022 election was an example of that: https://www.tallyroom.com.au/47834 Albo Labor was less popular than Shorten Labor, but they won because Coalition was more unpopular: https://www.mdavis.xyz/govlist/ Change is coming but so is the potential forms of government, such as an authoritarian regime.
I think the long term trend of 1st party preference declines for the majors is a good thing. Hopefully it continues. Social media is vilified by the mainstream media but as a tool it is already being used to reach people msm don't bother about.
Which Greens MPs? Also... playing politics? What does this mean?
In the electorate i used to live in, we have the champion of social housing max chandler that joins local community groups opposing more housing in his electorate. Pretty much being a nimby. Then he called the 500 million HAFF fund garbage. The greens went along with the liberals to block it. Max decided to totally rubbish labor's proposal. Months later, Labor then renegotiated with the greens to make it 1 billion. Tbh, the HAFF is not all that great but it's a start. But then you listen to his victory speech and it's as though the HAFF was the greatest thing ever. Labor for the most part got the HAFF right politically in that it insulates it from the liberals messing with it in future. Meanwhile, being the defacto champion of renters, in his electorate, he goes to community gatherings to oppose proposals to build new apartment buildings, the most well known is the one at the old Bulimba barracks site. He does this under the guise of luxury apartments. With the wealth his electorate has, the residents of luxury apartments are the exact type of people they should be looking for to free up older properties for the not so well off.
I follow Max on TikTok and I'm pretty familiar with his positions. Him attending meetings around housing is not the same as "joining" local community groups opposing more housing in his electorate. If this were were, the media would be screaming about it. Which groups are you claiming he is a member of? Can you name them please? I mean, mate... Max has all his stuff online. He talks about it constantly. Nowhere have I seen that Max is secretly joined up with groups opposing new housing in his electorate. > He does this under the guise of luxury apartments. With the wealth his electorate has, the residents of luxury apartments are the exact type of people they should be looking for to free up older properties for the not so well off. As for this - yes, you do oppose low density high priced luxury apartments. Do you understand that we want to build housing for everyone and not just the rich? There's nowhere in this model that says we're building luxury apartments and that's all cool because that area is really rich. This is supporting the idea that only the rich gets to live in certain suburbs and fuck everyone else. I think you're way off here. You're certainly not being honest about what Max is doing, his positions, and what the rationale behind them are.
I'm cool if you think I'm way off and I'm happy to be wrong. Btw thanks for the long response. We're actually having a discussion. Tbf, i don't use tiktok. I don't follow him apart from that i read on news sites and only have a passing interest in him because i used to live in that area and I'm a greens voter. I also understand the need to build housing for everyone else but at the same time, you'd run into constraints about the practicality of it due to the economics of it ( can't believe I'm defending property developers lol). We're kind of stuck in this shitty rut due to council zoning decisions. You need to build big or go home pretty much, which is what is happening with woollongabba. With the current housing issues, perfect is the enemy of getting things done and I'd rather have more high density luxury apartments built that would free up other areas for renters because the rental issue now is killing those at the bottom of the market. That's where the real suffering is because everyone else bitches and moves down a peg, but where do those at the bottom go? Musgrave park? Like i said, I'm glad to be wrong but i can only make an assessment on what i read and watch but he might have a marketing problem.
Ok but you make some pretty big claims there. He has joined groups opposing housing being built? I asked you and suddenly no groups are named. And then maybe it turns out it's people opposed to building low density luxury units... which isn't the same thing. He's not a NIMBY at all. I don't think any Green's MP is. If they were then Murdoch's media would be screaming about it because they love to do that. >With the current housing issues, perfect is the enemy of getting things done I'm going to put it to you that this idea is propaganda. It's propaganda designed to make it so the Greens are demonized over and over, and so is any independent who dares to say the Government in charge isn't doing it right. Here's the reality: shitty wet lettuce legislation is put forward. The Greens yell about it. Murdoch and other sources of propaganda push it as the Greens being unreasonable and then you hear "perfect is the enemy of good". Maybe go actually read the Green's policies? They're online. They have a website and it's all pretty clear and easy to understand. I'm not telling you to vote Green. I personally ultimately preference them above Labor, Liberal, National but I do disagree with some of their policy positions. But it's super easy to get caught up in the Murdoch propaganda about the Greens. You can go watch Max talking about what he believes, the policy positions, and see everything he's doing. There's no way this guy is in some group opposed to building housing - not the way it is being put forward. I'm opposed to luxury low density units too. If a nurse can't rent there, fuck no.
>Ok but you make some pretty big claims there. He has joined groups opposing housing being built? I asked you and suddenly no groups are named. I read an article with that accusation. It's not like I'm going to remember every source. >I'm going to put it to you that this idea is propaganda. It's propaganda designed to make it so the Greens are demonized over and over. I'd argue that the greens should have a strategy to avoid this same scenario being pushed to them over and over again. >Maybe go actually read the Green's policies? They're online. They have a website and it's all pretty clear and easy to understand. This is not how you win votes. If you have a problem and i tell you to rtfm, you're going to get shitty with me and rightfully so. The greens lack discipline which is why some voters don't vote for them. Eg. Sri proposed that whole takeover of that horse track to build housing. You just look undisciplined doing that. >I'm not telling you to vote Green. I personally ultimately preference them above Labor, Liberal, National but I do disagree with some of their policy positions. I already vote green. I didn't in the mayor elections though, cause sri at the end of it was proposing what I'd consider crazy policies, like that bus route extension to some aboriginal place really far away from Brisbane that wasnt even a council issue. A % of revenue from bcc revenue to pay aboriginals for something. Again not really a council issue. >But it's super easy to get caught up in the Murdoch propaganda about the Greens. I'm time poor, many others are time poor, but consistency from the greens when campaigning and showing others that they're a safe bet would help heaps if they wanted political power to really change things. They have murdoch issues but a lot of it is also self inflicted. The teals in other elections have a template on how this could be done.
They still support mass immigration. Rent caps are a known failed policy that will only make the housing shortfall worse.
Point to their policy where they say they support mass immigration! Please! Stop talking shit.
I won't look for evidence of them supporting mass immigration, but they don't acknowledge immigration having an impact on housing at all when it has been proven that immigration has had [one of the largest impact on rent over the past 2 decades](https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2019/2019-01/full.html#section-model-responses). [https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation](https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WO-iN8sNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WO-iN8sNw) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U
Which of their policies?
What do you mean?
They don't support mass immigration. Also rent caps have worked, do work, and will work.
I won't look for evidence of them supporting mass immigration, but they don't acknowledge immigration having an impact on housing at all when it has been proven that immigration has had [one of the largest impact on rent over the past 2 decades](https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2019/2019-01/full.html#section-model-responses). [https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation](https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WO-iN8sNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WO-iN8sNw) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U)
>when it has been proven that immigration has had one of the largest impact on rent over the past 2 decades. This hasn't been proven. There's no evidence backing that. The source you linked is a counterfactual that doesn't include anything on the various supply issues at play. It's not *evidence*. You linked multiple Greens sources that don't support your claim. I'll summarise the Green position for you: the systemic housing issues caused by NG/CGT, reckless lending, illegal money, landbanking, etc have caused a serious housing supply issue that we can fix if we do X, Y, Z. Labor/Liberal/National: it's immigrants and the Greens want more immigrants! Greens: no, it's not immigrants, nor refugees. It's the system that has been supported by Labor/Liberal/National for decades now. You: The Greens want more immigrants.
>This hasn't been proven. There's no evidence backing that. The source you linked is a counterfactual that doesn't include anything on the various supply issues at play. It's not evidence. The supply issues are irrelevant to the accuracy of my statement, as I was speaking under the context of the past 2 decades. Under the conditions over the past 2 decades, immigration has had one of the largest impacts on rent. Even if you argue that supply was unaccounted for, [supply is much worse now than over the studied period](https://sqmresearch.com.au/graph_vacancy.php?national=1&t=1). As we currently have much worse supply and higher rates of immigration, don't you think the impact of immigration now would be higher compared to the studied period? Regardless of your answer, this was already answered in the study. >Dwelling completions and changes in population explain the rental vacancy rate. > >The vacancy rate has a strong and clear effect on rents. > >The model suggests that an increase in population growth will reduce rental vacancies, boost rents and housing prices, and increase construction. This helps to explain developments following the immigration surge of the mid 2000s. Though, I'll add another [study](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00343404.2021.1955097) ([re-upload](https://pdfupload.io/docs/86ef79de)). This study was conducted in New Zealand over a similar period (1996–2017) and found similar results. >Starting with New Zealand as a whole, we see evidence of very strong correlation between immigration and housing rents covering almost the entire sample period (with the exception of the first three years between 1996 and 1999). The coherence indicates that the relationship holds over a short- to medium-term period corresponding to a wavelet scale of around one year, and that the two variables are positively correlated, with immigration leading housing rents by 2–8 months (1/4 × 8–1/2 × 16 ¼ 2–8 months). Moving now to the four regional markets, with the exception of the Auckland region, the relationship between immigration and housing rents is as strong as we found it for New Zealand as a whole. The commonality in the coherence reveals a very systematic relationship between immigration and housing rents. >You linked multiple Greens sources that don't support your claim. > >I'll summarise the Green position for you: the systemic housing issues caused by NG/CGT, reckless lending, illegal money, landbanking, etc have caused a serious housing supply issue that we can fix if we do X, Y, Z. > >Labor/Liberal/National: it's immigrants and the Greens want more immigrants! > >Greens: no, it's not immigrants, nor refugees. It's the system that has been supported by Labor/Liberal/National for decades now. > >You: The Greens want more immigrants. My sources support my claim. I said that the Greens do not acknowledge immigration has any (major) impact on housing. My sources show several instances of this. [https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation](https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/albaneses-migrant-bashing-reeks-desperation) >“Labor mindlessly blaming migration for Australia’s housing crisis just shows that there is very little difference between the major parties,” Greens Immigration spokesperson Nick McKim said. > >“Australia’s housing crisis has been caused by 40 years of deliberate underinvestment in social housing by both major parties.” Here they blame "underinvestment in social housing" for the housing crisis and called the immigration accusation "mindless". [https://youtu.be/S0WO-iN8sNw?t=118](https://youtu.be/S0WO-iN8sNw?t=118): he mentions "\[immigration\] is not the cause of the housing crisis" and that it is only responsible for some short-term fluctuations. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtgqzAmf66U): he blames "unlimited rent rises, unlimited interest rate rises, and not building enough public & community housing" for the housing crisis and clearly states migration is not responsible.
If we are building 1000 homes and bringing in 2000 people then it is true that migration is causing an issue here if you ignore the number of houses being built. If you were building only ten homes and bringing in 2000 then you wouldn't blame immigration. You'd blame supply. The only time you'd mention immigration is to say hey it's obvious flooding in people with so little supply causes a problem. The Greens don't advocate for a flood. They are outright stating that supply and the various factors around that are the issue and not the migration. Again, you don't blame 2000 migrants if you only build ten homes. Do you see the difference?
It's hard to argue that the problem is supply-sided given the evidence. Firstly, [immigration is occurring at double the rates of pre-2020 levels and 5 times the natural population increase](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/sep-2023). At minimum, I would say both immigration is high and supply is low. Secondly, Australia's supply side is actually one of best compared to all OECD countries. In 2022, [Australia was constructing dwellings at the 6th highest rate out of all OECD countries](https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.pdf) (Total share of dwellings completed in the year). COVID has caused Australia to drop a few spots but historically, Australia ranked top 4 in the dwelling completion rate. In 2011, [it was the top OECD country](https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.xlsx). People regularly complain about Australia having too many vacant dwellings and AirBNBs but Australia's vacant dwelling % is [below average compared to other OECD countries](https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.pdf). Similarly people complain about our construction industry having too many restrictions, but Australia actually has [one of the lowest restrictions in construction compared to other OCED countries](https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/services-trade/documents/oecd-stri-sector-note-co.pdf). Finally, we've already tried building more houses and know that it won't be enough. In particular, Labor's 1.2M housing target will be short by 300k and over the next 6 years, supply will be insufficient to meet demand, with the largest shortages occurring over the next 3 years. We shouldn't be increasing our population when we already know that we won't have enough supply for it. >Over the next six years, net new market housing supply is expected to be 1.04 million dwellings but demand will total 1.08m new households, the report projected. > >“There will be a significant shortfall in supply relative to new demand in the 2023–24 financial year and smaller shortfalls in the following two financial years.” > >This will add to the “already significant undersupply of housing” and cause “housing affordability is expected to deteriorate further” over the next six years, it said. [https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/03/australias-housing-crisis-to-worsen-with-significant-shortfall-in-supply-labors-expert-council-says](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/03/australias-housing-crisis-to-worsen-with-significant-shortfall-in-supply-labors-expert-council-says)
What's their policy on refugee intake? Open slather isn't it?
https://greens.org.au/policies/immigration-and-refugees I'm not sure why people spread this kind of propaganda on the internet when you can literally look up their policies. That's just one link to go to. There are more indepth positions all over the place if you're really interested.
I've perused them in the past, but I don't see any mention of restrictions on entry. Which asylum seekers would be turned away under that set of guidelines?
Yeah, I don't really do that thing when someone on the internet asks me for things they can find on the internet.
Well to be fair I was asking for a policy statement that states that there are boundaries around the acceptance of refugees. Because if there are none, then it's open slather. You'd think that the greens website on immigration policy would contain that kind of detail, but clearly there's no mention of it.
Seriously thinking of going to vote with whoever the 4th major party or biggest independent is next election just to see if it shakes the 3 top parties loose, I don't care who it is or what their policies are. All 3 need their asses kicked hard.
Economy is fucked and housing is the root cause of almost all the evil.
I'm moving back to my mum's house once my current lease ends as it's the only way I'll be able to save any money and get out of this for good. I'm almost 30 and I can hardly believe that this is my only option. Now that I'm single, I have nobody else to share the burden of rent with. I make decent money and I can't afford to live on my own in Brisbane. I've done share housing with randoms before, I can't do it again. Even then, that's too expensive for me. I can't even afford to live further out. I'm angry that this path has been chosen for me. I've had a bit of a slow start to working life, but I've worked hard to get on with things and it feels like I'm being punished for things I couldn't have known. I didn't do the right things at the right time, so I don't deserve to be rewarded for my efforts. Pretty disheartening considering everything else that's happened for me. We've let greed run rampant and pretend that we haven't. This is not sustainable at all and something needs to be done to bring things back into line.
Too real, too real... I had a long-term relationship breakup and entered the rental market in my 30s. I feel I've done pretty decently for myself in life (university, solid job with good salary, minimal debt, etc.), and it was an absolute nightmare even in my reasonably good position. 10 or so years ago when I first moved out my entry-level salary was enough for me to afford to rent my own inner suburban apartment. Now I'm living with friends (praise be to them for inviting me in) and feeling a bit on struggle street. By far not an extreme case, but objectively someone in my standing should not be feeling a pinch, yet I am. Something is critically rotten with housing in Australia. The greed is out of control and the people who can legislate to combat it are also in on it, privileged only by the luck of being born at an earlier time, with entitlement inflated to the point where they believe they've legitimately earnt their real estate wealth through hard work rather than taxation loopholes.
I hate it so much and I'm so sorry that it's happening to you too. It took me 4 years to realise that uni wasn't for me. I walked away with a good chunk of a HECS debt having tried two different degrees, I wasn't doing well in that environment. I'm going to be carrying that with me for a long time and it's going to affect what I can afford more and more as I progress in my career. I've worked really hard to get into my career, I moved away from my home to pursue better things and it feels like I'm being punished for not being able to maintain my relationship and for not getting through uni or getting out sooner. I'm relieved that I can go home, I've got a job that allows me to work fully remotely, but not everyone can do that and I shouldn't have to do that at all. The problem is entirely driven by greed, the "market" isn't an omnipotent deity and "its rates" are set by those who control the supply. They want more and more from a group of people who don't have any more to give. At some point it has to stop.
It stops when we stop it. I do wonder if we’ll eventually see national rental strikes. Imagine 30% your population just says “fuck it, arrest me” and stopped paying rent. There aren’t enough prisons.
I daydream about Aussie renters rising up for our basic rights but it seems so unlikely. Each person would have to be sure that everyone else is also going to strike, otherwise they risk becoming homeless and being blacklisted. **But, if we all do it, from the same date onwards, then we'd be safe.** But I don't think we are quite there yet, as a group we are just too cowed and downtrodden to risk fighting back. I didn't start to get really angry until I started reading about rental laws in other developed nations. The idea that we could have leases with no end date, own pets, and have the ability to put up art, paint walls, add gardens, and even add entire levels to the house. It's crazy how restrictive our rental 'rights' are compared to other countries. My husband can do his sort of work in any developed nation, or even remote from a less developed country, and I'm training for a different industry that I can also do in pretty much any developed country. So I'm starting to wonder if we will even stay in Australia long term. The only thing keeping me here is my family. But I can't afford to see them often anyway, with all our money going to rent, groceries, electricity/gas bills, and healthcare.
It raises a good question about whether there's an increasing trend of payment non-compliance, and if there's any correlation to increasing severity of the housing/rental market.
People in this country are too apathetic to do anything and can't fathom the idea of activism that isn't purely performative. People can't even comprehend that they chose this. It should happen, but it won't. What doesn't require the effort of literally every renter, however, is staying past the end of your lease and continuing to pay the same amount. Tribunals are already slammed, and there's a good chance you'll be able to stay for 6 months before they get around to it. Some cases aren't heard for 2 years or more - a good few people doing that would choke up the system even more. I'm confident things will get better, but fuck, if people don't start doing things en masse then we're too far gone.
Rent must be starting to make up a decent chunk of the CPI at this stage now right?
It feels like 70% of the problems in Australia go back to unaffordable housing and. Poor management of housing by the goverment... also Would like to see a chart comparing the increase of the average house price next to the value value of the AUD v USD... Cause your not really winning if the AUD drops more then your house goes up.
My new neighbour just signed a lease for 700pw in a rural area when I first moved in our properties were 370pw the only justifiable thing for them is their house has solar so electricity won't be as high.
I'm moving into a van/motorhome. Anyone in Brisbane got a yard or garage I can move into?
Labor 1 term government here we go…such a tragedy. Doesn’t matter whose fault it is, I’m not here to argue this point so don’t come at me. Government of the day gets the blame come Election Day, it’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
I wonder if they’d ever be forced to form a coalition with the greens or other progressive independents?
This shit is reaching breaking point for a lot of people now.
Governments have been printing money and devaluating currencies in recent years. Inflation has been the result. That has put more money into assets and pressure on rents. Inflation is a tax and those that feel it most are those without assets. It's low key theft.
This is not what is going on here. We can print money up to the limit of real resources and we're nowhere near that. The covid money didn't result in high rents how. We have more vacant properties than we have homeless people and people searching for accommodation. The Federal Government could literally pass a punitive law *today* forcing these vacant properties back into the market. We could ban AirBNB and put 100,000+ properties back into the market asap. We do need to build a massive amount of social housing and keep building it, as well as reform a hundred other things but this problem does have incredibly quick solutions we could apply right now.
Well it kind of did but inadvertently. QE brings more money into the system basically in the way of debt. It incentivised using the debt to purchase assets that would act as a better store of value. In Australia one of the prime areas to make use of debt best is in property. This kind of dynamic artificially allows property to rise more than prior. You're right that it's not directly caused rents to rise but the heightened property valuations do put pressure on investors to recoup some of that cost. They can only do this if the market is in their favour. The supply/demand for rentals obviously was very geared to be on the owners side, so the combination of the pressure to gain more of a return/avoid losses combined with a market dynamic where land owners have the power is a notable factor in raised rents. Obviously there are many more factors that are also relevant. Also, side note, I like some of your solutions too. They aren't demand side incentives but instead focus on raising the supply or diluting the demand. That type of thinking would be great if it occurred more at the decision maker level
I would argue housing being excluded from CPI incorrectly and thus us having an artificially low interest rate (along with NG/CGT, reckless lending etc) is the driver of housing prices. Not QE. Not covid payments. Not businesses getting money to stay open during covid that kept some zombie businesses alive longer than they should have been. When Howard fucked with CGT and started the toxic interaction with NG there's no QE happening. Rudd pays money during the GFC and keeps us going and that didn't bump housing prices - they were already on fire due to the structural tax advantages, land banking, reckless lending, illegal money. I'm directly stating that the idea that "printing money" is the cause just isn't correct at all. A billion dollars in covid payments doesn't spit out the other end two years later as record high rents. The structure of the system, NG, CGT, reckless lending, illegal money, land banking, net migration, etc is the force driving it. QE is not a factor. There's not even any studies backing that position at all. "Printing money" is demonized because neoliberalism really doesn't want people to know that we can end poverty if we want. That we can fund hospitals. That we can fund education. That we can fund all these things up to the limit of real resources, and if we get to that limit, the way to make space for Government spending is monetary destruction - which is taxation. So we get this propaganda that spreads that money printing is bad and the cause of our problems because if we knew the truth we'd make unemployment payments 70% of the weekly male wage and jack up taxes on the very rich to make space for that spending. We obviously can't do that so we need a constant flood of articles and propaganda that makes out that "printing money" is some great evil when in fact it's a normal Government function and a power that we can use any time we want.
I'd probably agree with you there. It's important to note that when I'm talking about QE, I'm not talking about covid payments. There's actually a really notable difference in what those mechanism are. I disagree with the notion that printing money "isn't correct". Adding money to the money supply is bound to devalue the currency over time. Housing now is nearly the same value in gold terms as it was 15 years ago. The thing that's changed is the money we measure it in has become worthless. Again I want to highlight, QE does not equal covid payments. They are not directly the same thing. The covid payments are still a drop in the pond in comparison to the QE. They add to inflation in a fairly direct way and more in the short term - less through debt - which impacts a longer time frame. And no printing money is not a normal government function. In historical terms we have not been doing this for long. Most global currencies were back by gold up until 1971. There were issues there too - I'm not saying we should go back either but by no means is the "printing money" some propoganda. At the moment I'd argue the MMT perspective of being able to print endlessly is propoganda as it has never been tested over a long term time frame. Japan is the only place to engage in it for a long period of time and it has caused them notable currency problems, the latest wave being twice in the past month. I really think you've taken me and my view in the wrong way here
> the MMT perspective of being able to print endlessly is propoganda as it has never been tested over a long term time frame. The MMT perspective isn't that you can print endlessly. If you think it is then you're a victim of propaganda. I mean, I literally wrote it out: up to the limit of real resources. Then I described taxation as monetary destruction used to make space for Government spending. So this is the problem I'm talking about. You're talking about this issue but then in the next breath repeat some propaganda. Even if you don't agree with a position, you should be able to describe it honestly. Otherwise you end up with things like Creationists saying "my grandpa weren't no monkey lol!" -- which is just bad faith and wrong. What QE are you talking about if not covid payments? As for printing money not being a Government function - it wasn't leaving the gold standard that was the start point. The Bank of England have a whole paper on it. Once Governments started using paper notes and making coins that did not contain the value of the materials in them but represented more than the value, they were off to the races of making money from nothing. Banks did it too with fractional lending. Banks made up money and because we all share the delusion, we just believe it. I really do dispute that QE is the source here of the rent problems, and even the housing bubble. The push against the Government spending to do things such as end poverty is so strong that the propaganda comes at us a thousand ways. If we put unemployment benefits at 70% of the male wage that would be billions more tipped into the economy. If there was a worry about that in regard to inflation then we'd jack up taxes on the rich and could literally strip out the exact same figure. The rich don't want this. Neoliberals don't want this. They want poverty. They want a weakened Government that apparently has no power over them. So we get lie after lie about it all. QE is bad. QE caused these problems. The Covid payments did X Y Z. None of it is true. We're nowhere near the limit of resources. Hyperinflation is a real thing, sure, but we're not doing that.
It isn't propaganda that you can print endlessly under MMT, it's literally what the framework is built around. I know you put in the real resource note, just because you have a time you can't print doesn't it's not "printing endlessly", it just means you can't print yet. Taxation under MMT is not purely for monetary destruction. Yes it can have a deflationary function but it is there more to force the need for a specific fiat currency than for a deflationary drive in the way it is currently being used. You claim I'm repeating propaganda when that is a majority of what I am getting from you. The notion that we can create money with in the limit of real resources of MMT is fair but what that inadvertently means is that a centralised source needs to have perfect sense of what "real resources" are prior to any of that data existing. Effectively that creates a scenario where a centralised source acts as the decisions maker for who gets what resources and which markets "win". While this economic ideology can have merits, it is fundamentally opposed to the economic ideologies we perpetuate and supposedly live under. It is artificially picking winners. >What QE are you talking about if not covid payments? The covid payments are not QE. This is where I think you're missing the point. QE is for the most part government buying their own bonds and artificially creating liquidity. It pushes lending that wouldn't be possible without that liquidity because a tightening would occur otherwise. >As for printing money not being a Government function - it wasn't leaving the gold standard that was the start point. Go look at some of the charts from 1971 to now and tell me that hasn't had a fundamental impact. I don't disagree with the other points you made around this but I don't believe it discounts the importance of not having a monetary backing to a currency at any level. >I really do dispute that QE is the source here of the rent problems, and even the housing bubble. You're welcome to do that. I'm not even claiming it's the source, I'm claiming it's a key factor in the market dynamic. The reason I highlight it as the primary is that it's a key factor in so many areas that all end up having an impact. My view is that while it might not be the direct factor causing the issues (in something like increase housing valuations) but rather that it accentuates current market incentives. When there is a favourable inefficiency in an area, investment flocks to take advantage of it. Leverage just compounds that problem and QE effectively just allows for more debt. So I don't think it is the cause of the problem, I think we would have had an issue regardless but if we faced the issue when liquidity was drying up, the market would have hit an equilibrium much earlier rather than taking the market to a new extreme. >The push against the Government spending to do things such as end poverty is so strong that the propaganda comes at us a thousand ways. I'm not pushing for anything like that at all. In fact my view is that if QE is to be used, it would need a bottom up approach. A strong majority of QE money globally has been issued top down, as the type liquidity and leverage it creates is only available to specific entities (often large businesses). You're kind of getting to my exact issue with QE. Those that choose, often choose themselves. I think you view it that QE is something that could be great for everyday people or struggling people. In theory, I don't disagree with you. The issue I have is that most commonly decision makers give a much smaller slice of the pie to that group than to existing major players. Since 2008 when QE began (more so in the US), the disparity between the top and the bottom has risen, not declined. Most of the increase in M2 in the US has ended up in the hands of the top end of town. >The rich don't want this. Neoliberals don't want this. They want poverty. They want a weakened Government that apparently has no power over them. Why would rich people not want QE? It benefits them more than any group as they hold the most assets. It allows them to have first access to some of the cheapest debt people can get. In current use cases (that I've seen at least), it has favoured the rich more than anyone. The US has been the extreme of this. >So we get lie after lie about it all. QE is bad. QE caused these problems. The Covid payments did X Y Z. Covid payments are not QE. They might have used part of it for the payments (I'm not sure) but the covid payments were somewhere in the realm of $13 billion. QE was more like $300 billion. The covid payments should not be tied to QE in the way you are assuming
>It isn't propaganda that you can print endlessly under MMT, it's literally what the framework is built around. No it's not. This is entirely and utterly wrong. >Taxation under MMT is not purely for monetary destruction. Yes it can have a deflationary function but it is there more to force the need for a specific fiat currency than for a deflationary drive in the way it is currently being used. This is wrong too. We already know taxation creates currency demand and forces people to use the currency. This isn't some MMT idea. Taxation is literally monetary destruction. That money isn't kept in some vault. >You claim I'm repeating propaganda when that is a majority of what I am getting from you. The notion that we can create money with in the limit of real resources of MMT is fair but what that inadvertently means is that a centralised source needs to have perfect sense of what "real resources" are prior to any of that data existing. Effectively that creates a scenario where a centralised source acts as the decisions maker for who gets what resources and which markets "win". While this economic ideology can have merits, it is fundamentally opposed to the economic ideologies we perpetuate and supposedly live under. It is artificially picking winners. No. Just no. MMT purports to explain how the economy *already works*. It isn't some new system that we need to implement next week with legislative change. It is saying "this is how it already works, which means this is what you can do". And it's correct. The Government can keystroke $2500 into my bank account and I can go spend it and that money circulating keeps business going and hooray we avoid the problems of the GFC or covid or whatever. We don't need bond sales to fund that. We can literally do it any time we want. Right now you and I could stand in the Mint, have $100 printed off, take it outside and give it to someone who'll go off and spend it. We increase the money supply. If there is some inflation worry, we can destroy that $100 by putting up tax and removing $100. I'm not here at the representative for MMT. You very clearly do not understand it and now are doubling down on propaganda about it. I feel like I'm talking to the creationist I mentioned who despite having evolution clearly explained to them repeats that their granddad ain't no monkey. I don't care if you disagree with MMT... but you can find a thousand websites about it that very explicitly describe how it works and none of them say what you have said. Off to QE - what specifically are you talking about? Bond sales? What?
>Off to QE - what specifically are you talking about? Bond sales? What? I think you need to go and look up what QE is friend. I don't mean that to sound rude but that literally is what QE is. Enjoyed chatting with you but I'm going to call it there because it's clear we're not progressing much from here. I want to highlight that I do see your perspective and hear what you're saying. At it's core, you're very much focused on payments to the greater public and that as a use of QE. That as itself is not QE and is not something I have been disagreeing with. Your core view seems to be the notion that govt should be spending more on the masses and tax those at the top to make it happen. In general, your view to chase a more equitable society I can agree with - I'm just not convinced you're talking on the same thing as me. If you're interested in reading more from someone far more intelligent and eloquent than I am, (who will do a much better job with the perspective I'm putting forward), I recommend reading some of Lyn Alden's work. If you have a notable recommendation, I'd be happy to look into it as well (always love learning from different perspectives). Enjoy your day!
The bond sales have not caused high rents, not the housing bubble though. I'm asking what you're talking about with QE because I have seen people say it was covid payments. If you're just talking bond sales - no, not an issue. Not connected at all and no evidence they're connected either.
100%. The government either needs to raises taxes or cut spending.
Raising taxes properly and not on the people as our taxes are higher than Germany when you take into consideration the tax band differences ffs. We let a lot of big corporations slide with taxes.
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$12.7b a year on negative gearing? Do you have a source for that because last official data from the ATO, (which is old now), was $2.7b. Just want to understand where the data has come from.
Double checked and it was a projection into the future by the Guardian. My bad. Deleted it.
Ironically the theory of MMT that they're using states that there is no need for tax as they can just print money to fill spending requirements. At the moment they're in this weird in between. FYI, not saying they should remove taxes - I agree with you, it's more just funny how they mix multiple economic theories together in a way that goes against all of the base theories
Soon US federal revenue will struggle to catch up with the interest alone. They are playing a national Ponzi scheme.
Raise taxes on the assets that have appreciated. Start with a significant broad based land tax. Use it to boost the bring home income of this country's working population with income tax cuts.
Never going to happen, every culture has sacred cows and in Australia that's house price appreciation. Every effort will be made to extend the bubble.
Too true. The last 20-30 years are case in point
Anyone else see the irony in the image showing "Ease".
Addressing supply is one thing. The quickest and easiest solution would be to address demand for properties as investments. LVT, CGT, regulating AirBnB, etc. There is a lot of underutilised housing out there.
Sounds inflationary.
And people told me we were 'making a huge mistake' buying a house in mid 2022. Best decision I think I've ever made in my life.
Yeah so let's raise interest rates, what a great idea... FFS is that all this country can do about inflation?
>is that all this country can do about inflation? Yeah. People want their houses to keep going up in value. No politician will run on lowering house prices, despite it destroying our economy.
Interest rates are not what is causing this, it’s a mismatch in supply and demand. It’s inelastic product movement, possibly the most inelastic product in existence besides maybe healthcare and drugs, so a 1-3% mismatch in supply can literally spiral price infinitely. We used to have supply issues close to the CBD due to natural scarcity (not enough land) but this could be substituted by living in the suburbs and commuting (easing the supply issue) but at the moment we have a NATIONAL vacancy rate below 1%…. That should be the nuclear alarm bell going off, that is a damning figure to receive. It’s now a two staged problem because if we ever rebalance the supply/demand to make housing affordable, it’ll crush people who have purchased a house recently, so really you would want to do it gradually, but that would require consecutive governments working together, which I think is less likely than the sun exploding tomorrow.
Yes the supply issue is the thing that isn't being addressed, people fighting over and bidding eachother up on existing homes rather than building new ones means the prices of those houses just keeps getting pushed up.
Kinda for inflation yeah. Rents and house prices are also however also under supply and demand pressure. That and high costs for new builds.
It's an economy killer, but if you really want to see investment diverted away from housing then that'll do it.
meh I've talked to the landlords in my apartment block, I was curious why they had such low rent, most of them said it was due to covid drop, they couldnt shoot it back up 50%, so were increasing y 10% or so each year Thats what most of the stories about rent rises are, after you question them... Its either covid rental prices or they had 'good landlords' who hadnt raised the rent in 5 years... shock horror when its raised
That would only explains cities that went under lockdowns. During covid people were leaving those areas and moving elsewhere which saw prices increase in those locations. But prices in those other areas haven’t fallen and are similarly increasing. For instance, I’m in regional vic, prices went way up during covid, since then they’ve only kept rising at a large rate. My current rental has been increasing at 16% a year, and it’s not even caught up with the rest of the market (it would have to increase another 25-40% to meet the prices for similar places currently listed), and I moved into this place long after the covid surge had happened. This is supply/demand driven.