While federal Labor’s suite of housing policies announced last week were applauded by the majority of national property, real estate and housing bodies, Liberal Senator Zed Seselja said Canberrans have been “abandoned” by Labor.
Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) President, Hayden Groves, said he welcomes both the ‘Help to Buy’ and the ‘Help to Supply’ announcements from the Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese.
“An evidence-based approach to a national Supply and Affordability Council with the right objective experts should provide a proper annual benchmark for Australia’s supply crunch. Only with dealing with supply will affordability barriers be overcome,” Mr Groves said.
“The proposed KeyStart-style program help to 10,000 eligible low- and middle-income earners a year is a sensible thing and REIA has supported the development of a feasibility study for a national KeyStart style program in the past.”
Similarly, Property Council of Australia (PCA) chief executive Ken Morrison said Labor’s announcement was a “strong foundation” for a “much-needed plan” to address housing affordability.
“We welcome measures to help people get into the housing market and the ‘Help to Buy’ would be an important addition to the housing affordability schemes already in place,” Mr Morrison said.
“We note the proposed ‘Help to Buy’ shared equity scheme is limited to 10,000 places a year and is therefore unlikely to distort housing markets or prices.”
The National Shelter gave Labor a “thumbs up” on the policies, with CEO Emma Greenhalgh commenting that the ‘Help to Buy’ scheme is an initative known to work.
“The WA Government has been successfully running just such a scheme for over a decade. A welcome aspect of this approach is its potential attractiveness for people looking to re-enter home ownership, as well as for potential first home buyers,” Ms Greenhalgh said.
“The ALP commitment to develop a National Housing and Homelessness Plan provides a real opportunity to build our way out of this crisis.”
However, Senator Seselja disagreed with the peak housing bodies and said the plan “completely leaves Canberra first homeowners behind”.
“The arbitrary $600,000 cap will see buyers forced into apartments instead of family homes in Canberra,” Senator Seselja said.
“[The] announcement completely abandons Canberra first home buyers and families who will struggle to access this program and would be locked out of the opportunity to purchase a family home.”
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