Investor support has been ‘ignored’: REIQ

The CEO of the Real Estate Institute of Queensland, Antonia Mercorella, has accused the Queensland government of ignoring the avenues of support for private investors in the state.

Ms Mercorella stated that private investors are the “primary housing engine behind buying, building, renovating and housing the state’s tenants”.

“Tax concessions have been provided to large institutional investors to build more rentals, but there has been nothing for smaller, everyday private investors,” she said.

“Why is there reluctance to apply that incentive approach to the average investor who might own one to two properties, when the principle of wanting to create more building supply is the same?”

Ms Mercorella further stated that the barriers to home ownership “continued to keep Queenslanders in rentals”.

“Stamp duty imposes additional costs on property transactions, which discourages turnover of housing and distorts choices between renting and buying,” Ms Mercorella said.

“Yet stamp duty thresholds have remained static for over a decade and there’s been no innovative thinking on how we can abolish if not erode this major roadblock.”

Furthermore, Ms Mercorella flagged the latest building approvals data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as “concerning” during the Queensland Housing Summit last week (3 November).

The CEO suggested that the data facing Queenslanders are currently as dire as they were before the summit.

“ABS building approval data shows we are approving the same number of homes as we did in the 80s when the population was half of what it is today,” Ms Mercorella said.

“Over the past 12 months to September, 33,755 new dwellings were approved across the state, when HIA (Housing Industry Association) say we need 40,000-plus per annum in SEQ alone.

“Social housing approvals remain static with only 430 approved in the past 12 months, to service Queensland’s rapidly growing population – again, compared to close to 2,000 per year in the 80s.”

Approvals hinder by high rates

Commenting on the latest building approvals data, HIA senior economist Tom Devitt said the full impact of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) rate hikes “continues to hurt households” as the “volume of new house approvals remains around its lowest level in a decade”.

“The number of new houses approved in September fell by 4.0 per cent for the month. This leaves approvals of new houses in the last three months 13.9 per cent lower than the same quarter last year,” Mr Devitt said.

“Building approvals continue to be weighed down by the fastest increase in interest rates in a generation.”

[RELATED: High rates hurting approvals: HIA]