Welcome to article, How to Fix the Housing Disaster, My Views.
Dear readers, we are writing about social issues that effect our way of life, and this is blog, No.9.
How to fix the housing problem.
Dear readers, before I can say anything about
Australia rental problem, we must look at what the politicians are doing to fix
it, because what is happening has been caused by the politicians themselves, as I will explain in my articles. Anyhow, we need to look at
what is happening in the rental market. So, let us paste some reports that I
found in the net, the 8th of June 2023, in this shortened quote
hereunder.
(And I quote)
Sydney's inner-city
market has seen the biggest surge in rents with Treasury expecting a record
400,000 migrants to move to Australia by the end of this financial year,
followed by 315,000 in 2023-24.
The city was home
to nine of Australia's top 10 suburbs for rental increases, with Melbourne
having one entry.
Sydney was a city
of extremes with rents soaring near the city but falling in scenic areas by the
water, including on the Central Coast an hour's drive north.
Rental increases of
more than 20 per cent were recorded in parts of Brisbane, with double-digit
increases also occurring in Perth and Adelaide.
(End of first
quote)
Looks like that
everywhere in Australia the house rent is going up. So, let us see what the
politicians are doing, to solve the problem, if they can solve it.
Anyhow, the present
government, believes that they can solve it buy building more affordable
housing themselves, with our taxpayer money. See what I found on the net, and
quote again.
The federal
government has confirmed it will divvy up its $2 billion social housing booster
payment to Australia's states and territories on a per capita basis.
- NSW will receive the lion's
share of $510 million, Victoria will get $496m, Queensland $398m and
Western Australia $209m.
- South Australians will see
$135m of the money, while Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT
will take minimum slices of $50m each.
- The funds will be allocated
over the next fortnight.
- Thousands of new homes will
be created for public housing tenants with both new developments and
upgrades of existing properties that are currently uninhabitable on the
drawing board.
- All of the money is to be
committed by states and territories within two years ending June 30,
2025.
- Prime Minister Anthony
Albanese announced the Social Housing Accelerator at the Victorian Labor
conference on Saturday.
- He did not specify exactly
how many homes would be created, saying that would depend on how
governments chose to spend the money.
"State and territory
governments have agreed that it will be in perpetuity, so we're not going to
have public housing built and then flogged off," he told reporters.
(End of the quote) Now let
us say something how we see this situation.)
--------------------
How I see Australia rental
situation.
From what is happening is
very clear that there are not enough rental properties available in Australia.
Here we must point out that the Australian economy is set to run with the
capitalist system, and in normal times is self-regulate itself, so, there is no
need to do anything, but this time something went wrong, so let us explain today situation.
One of the reasons for this
rental shortage is that for the past ten years or longer, the rents have not
gone up as much as other things, so, the few small investors that were
investing in rental properties, have stopped investing, because they cannot
make enough money to run the properties. The people in charge must understand that they have created
this problem themselves, because of the several charges levied on property
owners, and this includes rental properties, some of these charges are
completely unjust, but they say that they must do that because they need the
money, so, this problem has been created from the authorities in charge, and
now they are looking for a way out. But what they are trying to do may not be
the right way to solve the problem for good, like building some affordable
rentals themselves.
But I believe that this
rental problem cannot be solved for good, unless they fix what has caused it
first. Anyhow, the government wants to build affordable housing, that they are
going to pay with the taxpayer money. This may help, but it will not solve the
problem, they must understand, that if the private investors are not able to
run rental properties and make money, then the government body that is going to
run affordable rentals, can only run them at a loss, I hope I have explained my
views clearly.
-------------------
But what are the main
causes.
As we have said, there are
not enough affordable rental properties for rent, because there is not enough
money in rentals, if there was enough money, there would be investors. So, it
is not what people believe that if you have a rental property, you are rich. In
fact, I believe that if you have rental properties, you and your family have
lost your freedom, and you feel that you are the slave of the tenants. This is
only the first problem, because the biggest problem is how much money does this
property make, and how it affects everybody in the family, which usually will
be negative. So, let us explain how it affect property owners in a negative
way.
If you are a pensioner, you
may lose part of your government pension, and in some case the entire pension,
because of the assets test. The assets test is the biggest problem for a lot of
people, the greatest problem for the pensioners’ is that the assets test is set
at least three time too high. So, for every dollar you can earn from the rental
property, you very likely will lose fortnightly three dollars of government
pension, this is one of the reasons why, there are no more small investors,
wanting to invest in rental properties. I hope that I have explained myself
clearly.
Now, the assets test affects
other people as well in a negative way, like jobseeker and sick people, and
other groups as well. So, it would be helpful if the government removes the
assets test, or adjusts it in a more realistic way, that will reflect the same
values for everybody. But let us go back to talk about rentals.
-----------------------------
How can we fix the rental
shortage.
To fix the rental shortage,
not only the government should build affordable rental properties, and run them
the best way they can, even if they lose money. But above all they should
abolish the assets test or set it up in a way that the property owners can earn
the same money they can lose. You see, the property owners that we call
landlords run a service to the community, and if you run a service you are
supposed to earn some money. If you do not earn money, then this service
becomes impossible to run. I hope you see what we mean.
So, it seems to me that we
need more money for rentals, and it would help if they gave more rent
assistance to the tenants that are on low income, instead of blaming the
landlords, that sometimes are worse of financially than the tenants.
Anyhow, if what I have
suggested can be done, then the rental market can slowly return to normal. If
they do not, then the rental problem will be a lot harder to solve.
Well, this is what we have learned so far, and every day that I write something about rental, I will learn a bit more. So, the advice now is to abolish the ASSETS TEST ON AFFORDABLE RENTAL, and things will improve.
To see more click on this link, How to Fix the Housing Disaster, My Views.
See you next time, with whatever we can learn about rentals.
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