Writing from a laundromat you meet all sorts. It’s easy to drop into a housing affordability conversation here. No one can afford to get their washing machine fixed. One visitor starts swearing in front of his kids, telling his wife "it’s perfectly fine to swear when it comes to housing prices."
Those swear words and that frustration of not being able to afford repairs has finally made it into the Federal election campaign.
According to Malcolm Turnbull, it is perfectly rational for first home buyers to borrow over $400,000 on average. For many that is simply not enough with the average Sydney house price of $985,000. Turnbull’s only policy foray into this field has been to admonish parents to "shell out" for their kids to make up the difference.
The Greens and the ALP have been much more willing to address the structural issues with meaningful reform agendas for negative gearing and the capital gains discount.
Whilst all eyes are on the Federal arena, NSW politics struggles to represent the community interest. Club lockout laws have struck a nanny state nerve. Councils have been forcibly amalgamated. Meanwhile the other Sydney lockout continues unabated - the extreme cost of housing.
Former working class Marrickville is suffering from the community upheaval enforced by gentrification. Households earn some $64,000 per annum, according to the ABS Census. But property owners barely had to raise a finger to earn last year. In Redfern it’s a similar story with households earning some $85,000 but capital gains delivering $136,500. Why bother to work? ‘Just buy and sell property’ is the message we are sold, as if the 2008 global real estate crash never happened. A staggering 99.8 per cent of Ultimo is owned by investors. Have prices come down according to the mantra of the supply-side affordability dividend?
NSW land values increased a jaw-dropping $301 billion in 2014-15. But what did NSW MPs do to ensure we all have a place to call home? They effectively wiped out the most effective housing affordability tool. , ensuring that those just starting out in the property speculation game can do so without having to pay Land Tax. But what do first home buyers get?
With the First Home Owners Grant so widely discredited, a new policy ‘tool’ was needed. Enter the First Home Buyers Stamp Duty discount, where unsuspecting buyers believe they are being helped with ‘lower stamp duties’. But wait, home buyers still have to compete in the open market against investors subsidised by negative gearing. So they pay a similar housing price. The only difference is instead of stamp duties going to government, that money now goes to banks.
Those locked out of housing have spent the last decade learning about the housing problem. Many are seeing through the innuendo to question just who benefits from rising property prices. The voting public must decide this week if the status quo is good enough. For too many years people have been muttering under their breath - now it is time to put the other Sydney lockout on notice.
