Let’s say that housing prices come down back in line with historic (pre-2000s) trends, as honestly - they damn well should; how do we not fuck over the millions of otherwise innocent owner-occupiers who suddenly find themselves severely underwater on their mortgages, due to no fault of their own?

This is the needle we need to thread as a nation, and it’s a bloody hard one.

[–] Inaminate_Carbon_Rod@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We take those Stage 3 tax cuts that the wealthy gobbled up (leave the ones for the lower earners) and use them to pay off the banks.

Then write legislation to prevent this shit happening again.

[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

It’s a good idea to start with, but flooding banks with that much money will likely have a massive down-side (think post-COVID19 levels of inflation), and it would be difficult to determine the right amount for each house, given that prices would still be in flux/freefall.

My initial thoughts were about providing income tax deductions for losses on primary residence (eg. If your $900K townhouse in the ‘burbs devalues to $400K, you can claim the $500K over however many years it’s take you), as long as you continue to service your mortgage, after the initial refinance to determine eligibility.

But I’m sure a tonne of people would be able to immediately spot loopholes or other reasons why my idea wouldn’t work either.

It’s not actually all that easy, unfortunately - otherwise you’d think we’d already have had a politician put forward a proposal by now.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is the needle we need to thread as a nation, and it’s a bloody hard one.

It's essentially impossible. We've been hearing "the housing bubble is going to burst" for what, 30 years now? It's not going to burst because the government won't let it, because if it did the entire country would be completely and utterly fucked because everything is tied up in property. There is no lowering of house prices by any significant amount in our future.

What we need is to cut red tape and ridiculous fees on new developments/builds to encourage building (especially on secondary dwellings/granny flats - there should be ZERO council fees to build a granny flat on your own property) to increase supply, drastically reduce migration temporarily to reduce demand, ban foreign investors - even temporarily, and get rid of the fucking ridiculous 5% deposit mortgages they just introduced.

That's a few very easy things to do that would go a long way to getting things back under control. Prices won't go down, but most of them will stop going up. Inner city/beachside/"exclusive" places etc are always going to go up in price because that's where people want to be the most, and there is no more supply coming for those really.

Another thing that the government need to be doing is building some new big cities, and investing in existing ones to try and make people ok with moving 3 hours from Brisbane for example, because the city there is no longer just a single petrol station, a coles, and a bottle-o.

At the end of the day, if demand keeps outpacing supply at the ever increasing rate that it is now, there's literally no fixing it.

[–] jimbobbaggins@aussie.zone 2 points 1 week ago

And reduce the appeal of property as an investment.

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes and no. There are a lot of owner-occupiers in Australia now who on paper are Millionaires, and they like being Millionaires. They are not going to like it if/when that status is stripped from them.

If houses nationally suddenly dropped in value by 50%, even if people's mortgages were halved at the same time, I expect the change would still be met with hostility. It's the unspoken truth of housing affordability: far too many Australians are happy with the present housing prices. They're outnumbered by the rest of us, but they are a large enough voting block to decide any election.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

They’re outnumbered by the rest of us, but they are a large enough voting block to decide any election.

If they're outnumbered, how are they deciding the election?

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Because the rest of us don't have houses and aren't set to lose half our net worth by such policy changes. So, we have a variety of election policies that we prioritise.

When Labor propose making changes to the status quo, even with mild changes, they have historically lost the election.

It might be different next time, but it'd be a huge political risk to propose changes again after previous rejections.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Unless you're going to sell your house, it halving in value is irrelevant. In fact your primary place of residence halving in value would be an amazing thing for most people, as then they would be eligible for many handouts and subsidies that they currently wouldn't be thanks to means testing. People wouldn't have to sell their house to be able to afford in-home care (which is ironic).

[–] Seagoon_@aussie.zone 2 points 1 week ago

Rates would also go down.

[–] YeahToast@aussie.zone 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Because they are often wealthy, connected and have a voice, for example negative gearing. This only impacted a small percentage of people compared to the masses, but still made labor lose in a landslide to the liberal party in 2019

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 points 1 week ago

So they're not outnumbered then, are they?

[–] guismo@aussie.zone 0 points 1 week ago

Because they own the media. Or they are the ones the media wants to please.

Seeing TV on the gym always make me wonder who the hell makes that content and who the hell is meant to consume it.

Are all the viewers real estate agents, house owners paying for renovation or people on yatch trips? I don't see a single normal person on those shows.