https://www.afr.com/property/residential/house-prices-moving-before-buyers-eyes-20211016-p590ku House prices ‘moving before buyers’ eyes’ Larry Schlesinger Reporter Oct 17, 2021 Melbourne had its busiest auction weekend and Sydney recorded its highest preliminary clearance rate – 85 per cent – since autumn, while prestige properties sold within hours of being listed in the past week. “Property is being listed and bought on the same day. There is panic to get on the train before it leaves the station,” said Melbourne’s best-known buyers’ agent David Morrell. “Never in over 40 years have I seen such intense action. You can see it on the faces of mums and dads at Zoom auctions.” Booming in SA: Adelaide auctioneer John Morris in action over the weekend. Across the capital cities, 2920 homes were taken to auction over the past week – up from 2708 last week – making it the busiest week of auctions since late June, according to CoreLogic. The higher volume of listings returned a slightly lower preliminary clearance rate this week, of 81.8 per cent, down from last week’s preliminary clearance rate of 83.3 per cent, which was revised down to a final 80.2 per cent. Of the 1478 auctions held in Melbourne over the week (up from 1351) 79.4 per cent were successful, according to preliminary CoreLogic figures, down from 81.9 per cent, later revised down to a final 77.3 per cent at final figures. It was the busiest weekend for the city since late March. Sydney was host to 911 auctions this week (up from 825) of which 85 per cent were successful, a preliminary clearance rate that was higher than the 83.2 per cent recorded last week, which was revised down to 81.7 per cent. Across the smaller auction markets, Canberra recorded the highest preliminary clearance rate at 90.7 per cent from 123 listings, followed by Perth (86.7 per cent), Adelaide (82.3 per cent) and Brisbane (78.5 per cent). Domain recorded an 82 per cent clearance rate in Sydney, 74 per cent in Melbourne and 79 per cent nationally from just under 1400 reported auctions. Mr Morrell said he had bought seven properties in the past week for clients, including a property in Pearl Beach on the NSW Central Coast, which sold for $500,000 over its reserve. “Most of mine are one-hit wonders. Buyers are doing one inspection and then making an offer,” he said. He said forecasts from Westpac for Sydney house prices to rise 27 per cent this year and 18 per cent in Melbourne were changing vendor expectations. This terrace house in Carlton, Melbourne sold $750,000 above its reserve. “Would-be vendors are picking up the paper, seeing those forecasts and deciding they will sell at next year’s prices. There’s nothing to buy either. It’s a vicious circle. “Buyers are clearly worried. The market is moving before their eyes. In the last four to five weeks, it’s probably risen 5 to 10 per cent.” As examples of the level of demand near the upper end of the Melbourne market, a three-bedroom terrace at 188 Drummond Street in Carlton on the city fringe sold via online auction for $4.85 million, $750,000 above the reserve, Mr Morrell said. At 27 Hunter Street in Malvern, in Melbourne’s inner south-east, a four-bedroom Edwardian home sold for $3.92 million through Bree Scott of Jellis Craig Stonnington. The price guide was $2.9 million to $3.1 million. In South Yarra, another prestige inner-city Melbourne suburb, a three-bedroom Victorian home on just 438 square metres at 44 Tivoli Street sold for $4.66 million, more than $1 million above the reserve through Carla Fetter and Andrew McCann of Jellis Craig. Mr Morrell said a house like that should have sold for $3.5 to $3.8 million. “It’s lunacy,” he said. Multiple bidders drive auctions Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee said the average number of active bidders at auction hit a record high of 4.1 in September across Australia. “The drivers of this are well documented – lots of money, lots of buyers but relatively little on market, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney,” Ms Conisbee said. However, she said a late spring listings boom and APRA’s restrictions to finance, which come into place on November 1, could slow price growth. Ray White’s NSW chief auctioneer, Alex Pattaro, said there were 11 registered bidders for a three-bedroom top-floor apartment in Monterey in southern Sydney which sold for $1.255 million through Ray White Brighton-Le-Sands’ Peter Tsekenis and Elia Economou. Sixteen registered bidders tuned in for two online auctions, a three-bedroom house at 122 Gipps Street in Drummoyne and a small art deco apartment block at 115 Victoria Road in nearby Gladesville, which were marketed by Ray White Drummoyne agent Chris Wilkins. The Drummoyne home sold for $3.405 million to a young family from the area, while the apartment building in Gladesville sold for $4.5 million. In Brisbane, Ray White’s Gold Coast auction event held at the Sheraton resulted in 22 out of 25 properties selling, a number of them to interstate buyers who had not set foot in the properties. “It’s certainly becoming a theme, where buyers are comfortable enough to be able to acquire and purchase off the back of seeing the property virtually,” said Ray White chief auctioneer Gavin Croft. “I would suggest that one in every five over the last two weeks has been purchased in that particular fashion.” In Adelaide, Ray White South Australia chief auctioneer John Morris said vendors were embracing auctions as their preferred way to sell. “There is now about 10 per cent of all properties going to auction whereas in the past this has always been below five per cent,” Mr Morris said.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...es-affordability-worries-20211021-p5924g.html Pandemic boom: House price surge stokes affordability worries By Matt Wade October 23, 2021 When you ask Sydneysiders what worries them most you might expect health or unemployment to top the list considering the Delta outbreak and its devastating effects on the economy. But we’ve got an even bigger bugbear: housing. Sarah Ward and Milan Atlagic have been trying to buy an apartment together in Sydney’s hot property market.Credit:Brook Mitchell The latest Ipsos Issues Monitor, which asks a representative sample of respondents to select the most important issues facing the community, showed housing affordability in now the number one concern in NSW, having surpassed both healthcare and the economy in April. Rising anxiety over housing costs coincides with an extraordinary surge in Sydney property prices. Despite pandemic, recession and an historic slump in population growth, Domain Group figures show the median price of a standalone house in the city rose 24 per cent in the year to June. “This has really been a year like no other for Sydney housing,” says Nicola Powell, Domain’s chief of research and economics. “There have only been three times since the early 1990s when we’ve had quarterly price growth above 8 per cent and two of those times have been in 2021.” Sydney’s median house price stands at $1.4 million and, on current trends, will soon smash the $1.5 million threshold. Amid the price spiral the banking regulator stepped in this month to tighten lending standards. Under the changes announced by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), banks have been forced to use more cautious interest rate assumptions when assessing new customers. But Peter Tulip, chief economist at the Centre for Independent Studies and author of many research papers on housing prices, says that will just make it harder for many first time buyers to get a loan. “One of the main reasons the public dislikes rising house prices is that it puts homeownership out of reach, particularly for young families, and APRA’s response makes it even worse,” he said. Unstoppable: last year the share of first-time buyers taking a home loan nationally reached a decade high. Crediteter Rae At the onset of the pandemic some experts predicted a sharp fall in house prices. Instead, the unprecedented stimulus unleashed to support the economy through the crisis, especially rock-bottom interest rates, fired up demand for residential property. The reduction in borrowing costs was more than enough to offset the property market negatives, even the dramatic slump in migration which reduced demand for housing. So far, the boom has been driven by owner-occupiers either buying a first home or upgrading, although the share of properties purchases by investors is now on the rise. Property information firm CoreLogic estimates the total value of residential real estate in Australia reached $9.1 trillion this month having added $1 trillion since April. That’s almost 30 per cent more than the value of superannuation, the ASX and commercial real estate combined. Dr Tulip says the flurry of property purchases “has been an efficient and sensible response” by home buyers to incredibly low interest rates. Last year the share of first-time buyers taking a home loan nationally reached a decade-high but has since fallen sharply. Cracking the market Office manager Sarah Ward, 26, and her partner Milan Atlagic, a 29-year-old fire door specialist, are trying to buy their first apartment together in Sydney’s rising property market. The couple, who are renting in Bondi, have been looking in the eastern suburbs and inner west for a one- or two-bedroom apartment for the past six months. “It’s hard because we keep feeling like we have our foot in the door, and then we are very surprised because we actually don’t,” says Ward. Domain data shows the median price of a one-bedroom apartment in Coogee is $840,000, but Ward says every apartment they have looked at has sold for at least $100,000 more than that, and well above the price guide provided by property agents. Last week, the couple looked at a one-bedroom apartment in the area they were told would go to auction. “We went online to show our friends…because we were so excited, and that’s when we found out that the apartment had sold before auction for $1.05 million,” Ward says. Properties selling before auction has been a recurring issue for the couple during their home search. “We feel like we have to just keep waiting and saving, or hold off with what we have and hope the market cools off, so we have a chance,” says Ward. The time it takes to save for a home deposit illustrates how housing affordability has deteriorated. Reserve Bank analysis shows that in 2013 it took an average of six years for a typical Sydney household in the 25-34 year-old age bracket to save a deposit for a median priced dwelling in the city. But that has now climbed to nine years (across all capital cities that average has increased from five to seven years). “Australian culture encourages young families to aspire to home ownership and the deposit barrier is frustrating that aspiration,” says Tulip. The politics of housing affordability is back centre stage thanks to the pandemic property boom. Premier Dominic Perrottet says it will be “a real focus” for his government. His ambitious proposal to replace stamp duty with an annual property tax promises to reduce the upfront cost of purchasing a home, but there is still no indication when the changes will be introduced. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says housing affordability will be a focus for his government.Credit:Nick Moir “We are facing a challenge when it comes to generational equity where many young people today cannot get the keys to their very first home,” Perrottet said on the day he became premier earlier this month. “We have a duty to ensure that generations that come after us have greater opportunity and prosperity than we have, and in order to do that reform is key.” But there are limits to what the state government can do. It has influence over policies which affect supply, especially planning, but the federal government is responsible for many of the tax settings which affect housing including negative gearing and capital gains tax. Regional property market dynamics also vary greatly – so policies that make sense in one area, say the inner-suburbs of Sydney, might not be appropriate elsewhere. Expert submissions to a federal parliamentary inquiry into housing affordability, launched in August, suggest there is no clear consensus on the best ways to tackle Australia’s housing affordability challenge. Some submissions to the inquiry focus on the way property is taxed, some advocate for more social housing, while others emphasise the need to overhaul planning rules so the supply of housing in well-located neighbourhoods can increase. Grattan Institute economist, Brendan Coates, warns housing policy in Australia is in danger of becoming more politicised as “one side focuses on tax and one side focuses on supply, when there is merit in both proposals”. Meanwhile, two major international economic institutions - the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – have both identified deteriorating housing affordability as a problem for Australia. Last month an IMF review on the Australian economy warned that “surging housing prices raise concerns about affordability and financial stability” while an OECD report linked declining housing affordability to growing wealth inequality. The IMF and the OECD both blamed restrictive planning rules for constraining housing supply and suggested the Commonwealth and state governments should provide financial incentives for local governments to streamline zoning regulations in a bid to increase the supply of housing in desirable locations. Dr Tulip says providing financial incentives for councils to adopt less restrictive planning rules in a bid to lift housing supply is a “new and interesting idea” in the debate about affordability. But achieving higher housing densities in Sydney’s well-located suburbs is sure to meet voter resistance. Coates says most of the planning and tax reforms that would actually improve housing affordability are politically difficult. “That’s what makes it such a wicked problem” he says. “It’s that politics that has led governments of both stripes over the past 30 years to avoid policies that would make the biggest difference, and instead we’ve got policies that sound good but don’t make much difference or are even counterproductive.”
Here's the solution, do absolutely nothing now until the problem just grows even worse, then just prior to the next federal election, promise a carrot to fix this mess so you win the votes. You'll be seen as a miracle saviour. Once elected, do nothing again. There - problem solved!
NSW targets capital gains as property tax fight erupts John Kehoe Economics editor Oct 22, 2021 https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/...-as-property-tax-fight-erupts-20211022-p592a3 The NSW Liberal government has proposed curtailing tax breaks for capital gains to reduce investor speculation and curb housing prices, splitting with the Morrison government and embracing a position federal Labor unsuccessfully prosecuted at the last two elections. NSW also requested federal payments to fund a yet-to-be-finalised proposal to gradually transition from stamp duty on property purchases to an annual land tax, so states were not inadvertently penalised on their GST distributions. NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes’ department said the 50 per cent discount on capital gains caused “significant” purchases of investment homes rather than accommodation for owner-occupiers such as first home buyers. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Planning Minister Rob Stokes are pushing for housing tax reforms. Kate Geraghty, Louise Kennerley “The federal government should review taxation settings, including the capital gains tax discount of 50 per cent on properties held for over 12 months and consider reforms to ensure an appropriate balance between the purchases of properties for owner-occupied and investment reasons,” the NSW government said. “The continued upward growth in housing prices would be lessened to some degree”, it would “reduce speculative pressures in the housing market” and there would be a “small relative shift back to benefit first home buyers from the current high focus of investment purchases”, it said. The proposal was made in a submission to a federal parliamentary inquiry into housing affordability and supply being chaired by Liberal MP Jason Falinski. Mr Falinski said on Friday the housing affordability problem was caused by state and local government planning and zoning rules crimping the supply of new homes, and he called the NSW submission “very disappointing”. “Instead of focusing on their own reports that show they’re short 100,000 houses in Sydney and they need to be building 40,000 houses a year just for the problem not to get any worse, they talk about federal government issues like capital gains tax and requesting more money to transfer from stamp duty to land tax,” he said. “With low interest rates in the bond market there’s never been a better time for states to borrow to fund scrapping stamp duty themselves.” ‘Dumbest tax break’ National median dwelling – houses and apartments – prices climbed at their fastest annual pace since 1989, jumping 20.3 per cent over the 12 months to September 30, according to Corelogic. Sydney soared 23.6 per cent to a median dwelling value of $1.06 million, Canberra surged 24.4 per cent to $838,904, Melbourne jumped 15 per cent to $775,142, Hobart surged 26.8 per cent to $659,622, Brisbane rose 19.9 per cent to $625,291, Adelaide rose 19.1 per cent to $529,376, Perth increased 18.1 per cent to $524,589 and Darwin rose 20.2 per cent to $481,767. The RBA told the inquiry that Australia’s fast-rising housing prices are a consequence of low interest rates and people’s ability to spend more on homes. Increased supply of new dwellings would reduce the growth in prices but would not be enough to offset the greater spending power coming from low interest rates, the RBA said in September. The RBA also said in “combination with the concessional treatment of capital gains”, negative gearing creates an incentive for leveraged investment in property and adds to demand for housing. Corinna Economic Advisory principal Saul Eslake congratulated the NSW government for exposing the CGT discount, which he said was the “one of the dumbest tax breaks in history”. The CGT discount was introduced by the Howard government in 1999, replacing the inflation indexation of capital gains, in response to a business tax review recommendation by John Ralph who wanted to boost entrepreneurialism and increase share ownership. “The CGT discount turned us into a nation of property speculators,” Mr Eslake said. “It had the effect of turning negative gearing from deferring tax when a property was sold, to permanently reducing tax paid.” Of the 2.2 million taxpayers owning at least one rental property, 1.3 million declared a net rental loss in 2018-19, according to the Australian Taxation Office data. Complex mix of factors Centre for Independent Studies chief economist and a former RBA official Peter Tulip said his review of about six economic papers on housing found that the combination of the CGT discount and negative gearing contributed only a small 1 per cent to 4 per cent increase in dwelling prices. Mr Tulip’s analysis is that zoning regulations contribute to 42 per cent of the average detached house price in Sydney, 41 per cent in Melbourne, 29 per cent in Brisbane and 35 per cent in Perth. “Increasing supply and lifting zoning restrictions could have a huge benefit,” Dr Tulip said. At the 2019 federal election, Labor’s then leader Bill Shorten campaigned on reducing the CGT discount to 25 per cent for investments such as housing and shares held for longer than 12 months and to scrap back negative gearing except for new-built dwellings. The Morrison government campaigned against the “housing taxes” and Labor lost the election. Labor has since dropped the policies, in favour of a $10 billion social and affordable housing fund. Australian National University economic and social researcher Ben Phillips said the major recent contributor to high house prices was low mortgage rates. The tax-free status of the principal place of residence, tax breaks for investors, zoning and planning red tape, strong population growth pre-pandemic and demand for detached homes during COVID-19 from Australians trapped inside the international border and not spending overseas had also contributed, Mr Phillips said. “People often oversimplify these things when it’s a combination of a whole lot of things, led by interest rates putting upward pressure on asset prices,” Mr Phillips said. The prudential regulator moved this month to take some heat out of the housing market, raising the “serviceability buffer” that banks use to assess loans, which it says will reduce the maximum borrowing capacity for the typical borrower by about 5 per cent. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority told banks to increase the interest rate buffer by 0.5 percentage points, from 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent by October 31. Mr Eslake said all levels of government had contributed to ever-escalating housing prices for decades because politicians knew that more voters benefited from higher house values. “For all the crocodile tears which politicians of all persuasions routinely shed about the difficulties facing those wishing to get their first foot on the property ladder, deep down they know that there are far more people who already own at least one property and who therefore have a very strong interest in policies which result in continued property price inflation,” Mr Eslake said in an earlier submission to the inquiry. “And, sadly, there’s no reason to think that political calculus is going to change. “Nor, therefore, are the housing policies which have resulted in created the housing system which Australia has today.” Mr Falinski said Australia had a productivity problem and the big reform levers to fix it rest with state governments. “There is a very strong argument for compensation and incentives to the states to make reforms,” Mr Falinski said. “Frankly though, stamp duty to land tax is not one of them because the benefits overwhelmingly flow to state governments.”
In a nutshell! Not only is it about votes, but also to protect their self interests, which is rich landlord mates and politician's own (geared) property portfolios. If politicians weren't allowed to be neck deep in running side hustles, there would be no politicians hardly. A politician who wasn't already a fat cat is basically unheard of.
Opinion Vested interest: How the home-ownership game is rigged Ross Gittins Economics Editor October 27, 2021 https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...ownership-game-is-rigged-20211026-p5934h.html The poor relation in all our worries – about the pandemic, the economy, climate change – has been housing affordability. While everything else in the economy has been weak, house prices have been rocketing. I can tell you why they have, and I can say with confidence that house prices can’t keep rising at double-digit rates forever. But I can’t assure you we’ll ever get house prices to rise no faster than we find easy to afford, nor that we’ll ever manage to reverse the steady decline in the proportion of households owning their home. Low interest rates have disproportionately favoured home owners.Credit:Fairfax Media When I started in this business in 1974, it was at a record 70 per cent. Today it’s down to 65.5 per cent – it’s lowest since 1954 – and almost certain to keep going lower without radical change. It’s always possible that it’s all a great bubble that one day bursts, bringing house prices crashing down. That, amid all the pain and destruction – all the families being evicted from homes the mortgage payments on which they could no longer afford – the consolation for others would be much more affordable prices. For the housing market to one day go from boom to bust is almost certain. It’s happened plenty of times before. It’s a myth that house prices always go up and never down. But in my experience, they’ve never fallen far, nor for very long. They take a breather for a couple of years before resuming their upward march at a more sedate pace. Until the next boom. Every time interest rates have fallen over the past 30 years people have used the opportunity to borrow more. Why am I so confident that, over any period longer than a decade, house prices will be higher? I could say it’s because Australians are obsessed by the desire to own their home, and then gradually turn it into their mansion. But Aussies aren’t different to people in other rich countries. So I’ll just say housing – along with education, healthcare and other things – is a “superior good”. As our incomes rise over time, we spend an increasing proportion of them on our housing. This is mainly why house prices keep rising. One consequence of the rise of the two-income family was that a higher proportion of their joint income went on housing. What we hope we’d achieve by this was a better house – bigger, better located or better appointed. It’s true that newly built houses are bigger and better than they used to be, and established houses are always being remodelled and extended. But when lots of people are trying to get a better place at the same time, a lot of the extra borrowing and spending just bids up the price. It’s much the same story with the fall in interest rates. From their peak of 17.5 per cent in 1989, mortgage rates are now down to about 3 per cent. Why? Primarily because the inflation rate’s fallen from 9 per cent to less than 2 per cent, but also because the advanced countries have never got their economies working properly since the global financial crisis, and have been using ever-lower interest rates to get things moving. (Note that, unlike normal people, economists use the word “inflation” to refer only to the prices of ordinary goods and services, never to the prices of assets such as houses.) The point is, every time interest rates have fallen a bit over the past 30 years people have used the opportunity to borrow more in an effort to buy a first home or move to a better one. Again, when too many people do this at the same time, house prices are bid even higher. The main reason house prices have soared during the pandemic is that the Reserve Bank has acted to protect the economy by cutting its official interest rate virtually to zero, and we’ve responded the way we always do to lower rates. So, much of the seeming benefit of lower interest rates ends up as higher house prices – to the benefit of existing home owners and the expense of young aspiring first-home buyers. The good news for first-home buyers is that, with rates having hit the bottom, this is the last time house prices will soar simply because rates have been cut. So double-digit rises in house prices can’t last. The bad news for would-be and recent actual first-home buyers – which won’t come for a couple of years yet – is that the next move in rates can only be up. The rules of the home-ownership game are rigged in favour of existing home owners. That’s because they far outnumber aspiring home owners. And they’re not willing to give up their tax and other privileges to help the younger generation. Except, of course, their own kids. The Bank of Mum and Dad has played a big part in making seemingly unaffordable house prices able to be afforded – by some. The ever-rising proportion of Australians who’ll never own their homes are mainly those who failed to pick the right parents. Want proof of the widening gap between the rich and the rest? Look no further than home ownership.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...-wages-over-four-decades-20211102-p595dr.html House price growth three times faster than wages over four decades By Caitlin Fitzsimmons November 7, 2021 The price of a typical house in Sydney has multiplied by 17 times in the past 40 years, almost three times faster than wages. Analysis by social research firm McCrindle revealed that wage growth has failed to keep pace with the housing boom across all Australian capital cities. Melbourne property prices increased the most since 1981, while Sydney has remained the most expensive housing market overall. Alexandra Samootin saved money for a house deposit and owned a home with her then-husband, but wound up homeless in later life.Credit:Janie Barrett Founder Mark McCrindle said the rise in two-income households had boosted relative borrowing power for some families, but this also widened the social divide. “It is meaningful to look at the increase in the earnings-to-housing ratio because while some are able to combine two incomes, others get the Bank of Mum and Dad involved, and others might have access to other resources, it’s certainly not the case for all,” he said. “Assuming someone has one income to work with, it does mean that the access to housing [ownership] is not as universal as once it was and so it might still be an Aussie dream, but it’s only achievable for some.” The report, titled The Fading Australian Dream, combines current and historical figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, property analytics firm CoreLogic, and economist Peter Abelson. The median house price in Sydney in 1981 was $78,900, five times the national full-time average annual earnings of $15,800. In 2021, the city’s median house price was $1.31 million, 14 times the average income. Sydney unit prices have risen from a median $67,300 in 1981 to $824,860 in 2021 - an increase from 4.3 times to 8.8 times average earnings. Average full-time earnings are now $93,500 - 5.9 times what they were in 1981. However, Sydney house prices are 16.6 times higher and unit prices are 13.2 times higher. Melbourne’s property market grew the most, with the median house price 21.9 times higher than in 1981 and the median unit price 17 times higher. In 1981 in Brisbane it was cheaper to buy a house than a unit. Mr McCrindle said this was an anomaly caused by the fact that luxury apartments in the city were virtually the only units in Brisbane at the time. Mr McCrindle said the same trends would also apply to the rental market. “House prices are a proxy for rents so as the house prices go up, so do the rents,” he said. “The other thing with a property price growth market, like we currently have, is that you have people who have been happy as landlords just having their place rented out, suddenly selling because the prices are too good to be true, and this is creating some shortfalls.” Joel Pringle, the advocacy manager at the Benevolent Society working on the EveryAGE Counts campaign against ageism, said the insecurity and expense of the private rental market was a big cause of homelessness. “High rents have a big impact on people who have had insecure housing over a long time,” Mr Pringle said. “Housing costs are a huge part of homelessness but also unexpected life events like relationship breakdown or losing a job.” This was the case for Alexandra Samootin, 78, who spent three months in a women’s refuge a bit over a decade ago and now lives in public housing in Dee Why. Ms Samootin owned a family home in Mona Vale with her husband of 22 years but, after her divorce and unexpected legal problems, she was left bankrupt in later life. “I still consider myself homeless because I’d never live in this type of unit,” she said. “I can’t have the grandkids here.” Ms Samootin said she saved enough for a home deposit working as a secretary by the time she was married at 28, but she feels sorry for young people today who “would need to be on a terrifically high income” to do the same. People over 55, especially women, were one of the fastest-growing groups of homeless people in the 2016 census, and people aged 55 to 64 are one of the biggest cohorts on unemployment benefits. The EveryAGE Counts campaign is advocating for NSW to adopt the Home at Last program running in Victoria, which provides advice, support and advocacy for older people who are homeless or at risk.
Seems to me the problem is simple to resolve: Build more multi unit housing. It would have multiple benefits, lower cost of ownership, greater population density helps stimulate small business creation, lower environmental footprint, easier infrastructure management... oh but I forgot. Aussies are like Americans, white picket fence property with a lawn up front, a garage and a dog... come to think of it, it very British, yeah?