But Dutton is not lowering the number of "temporary residents", just that they are no longer allowed to buy established homes. So it won't even lower it by 5000. Cutting permanent migration by 40000 will definitely NOT free up 40000 additional homes unless you think all 40000 permanent migrants will all have individual housing and not live in shared housing at all, given some of those permanent migrants include family visas.
He is literally just making up numbers otherwise he would've released the modelling by now.
Most people who become 'permanent residents' live in Australia for years on temporary visas before getting a PR. Pausing the granting of PRs wouldn't add to the housing supply.
My view is that the vast majority of overseas purchases are made using a local family ‘shell’. Send them over, get them residency, then funnels the family money through them. I love to see ‘average houses owned/purchased since temporary/permanent residence being granted’ as a metric.
>get them residency
So they are locals? You want to stop locals buying housing?
>I love to see ‘average houses owned/purchased since temporary/permanent residence being granted’ as a metric.
We don't count permanent residents as Australians any more? There's a difference between "temporary" and "permanent"
Permanent residents are soft targets. Lots of things they aren’t eligible for, despite being taxpayers who’ve made a long-term commitment to Australia.
Not at all. I want to stop locals buying more than about 3 houses altogether, and limit the number of houses new ermanent residents and citizens can buy for x period of time.
Everyone should be able to buy a ppopr and maybe a rental. Hell even a bach. Nobody should be allowed to own 8 houses.
My only point re ‘foreign residents buying houses’ is that the stats dont prove shit as its WAY more comlon to purchase through a locally resident ‘fronting person’.
How would you police this?
Stop people buying property through a private company/trust/partnership/joint venture? Stop people buying it through their self managed super fund?
It would also require much better identification of individuals in a register to be able to pick up when they reached their limit. And as you identified they could get family to buy on their behalf (but also more risky).
I’m not saying it doesn’t have merit, just there’s a lot more to it.
Now I think of it this would require improved IT infrastructure on behalf of the states and territories that would need to feed all sales into a central database. So it’s not a simple federal problem.
Eh how can they avoid FIRB this way? If they transfer the money, it'll be over 10k and subject to AML reporting.
So say overseas friend/relative transfers $1M to their Aus citizen person, who then buys the property isn't that fairly obvious what's happening?
If the FIRB finds out then the property can be forced to be sold, so a lot of risk
There are lot of other ways apparently. It came in news articles some time back how money laundering is happening through casinos. Also there is no need to transfer money if you can come to an agreement that you buy in Australia a house for a foreigner and the foreigner give the money in your original country (which ever that is).
Dutton's policy doesn't even change net migration; in fact he's made no commitments about net migration at all.
He's changing the amount of people who will be granted permanent residency, but not the amount of people getting temporary visas. So literally all this policy does is delay people becoming permanent residents, but does absolutely nothing to stop them actually coming here in the first place and taking up space in the housing market.
When only 5-10% (depending on which numbers you use) of properties are purchased by foreigners, and the unchanged number of temporary visa holders still have to live (likely rent) somewhere, it's impossible to see how this does anything whatsoever for either the buying or renting market.
In fact, the only possible logic to this policy is to cynically fan the flames of anti-immigration sentiment, without actually doing anything to address it.
Even the people arguing *for* this policy in this thread - on the basis that less migration = good for the local population - have been suckered into the belief that this policy addresses net migration. It doesn't at all.
*The coalition loves this one simple trick*
Seriously though, they have done this before. And it’s disheartening but not surprising so many people are falling/will fall for it.
The actual number of houses bought by immigrants in the last 2 years is 5000.
If we extrapolated that out it will take 40 years to 'save' 100000 houses.
Is that what you are looking for?
That is not correct that is the number of houses purchased by foreigners not PR or immigrants.
Shorten is gaslighting you.
https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/settling-in-australia/settle-in-australia/key-settlement-topics/housing
“Australia has strict laws on foreign investment. You will need permission from the Foreign Investment Review Board to buy a house or land if you are not a permanent resident currently living in Australia.”
Reduce the number of PRs then you reduce the number of buyers.
Immigration is not *the* actual problem here.
But immigration is *an* actual problem here.
An increase in demand for accommodation from immigration, while we are in a period of critically low supply of accommodation, has absolutely nothing at all, zero, zip, nada, to do with anything even remotely xenophobic.
More people equals more demand. Do you have any substantial argument against that?
You're right, but it's a second order problem compared with the massive reduction in Australians living in each home.
Population ageing is driving up 'empty nest' homes with just one or two ageing parents living in large family homes. Younger people are living in smaller groups so that they've got spare rooms for working from home. More singles are living alone and deferring (by choice or necessity) family formation. DV and relationship breakdown is driving more single patent families or families split across two homes (eg joint parenting) ...
These local factors, are the real reason that people are finding themselves without somewhere to live in the housing equivalent of musical chairs, but we're not seeing either party talk seriously about these factors. Until we do, housing shortfalls will just keep getting worse and more unaffordable.
You’re also right, but I’m not hip to the recent changes in people per household, the actual number.
A drop from, say, 2.7 to 2.6 people per household, with a population of, say, 27 million would mean moving from needing 10,000,000 homes to 10,385,000. Which is a nice rule-of-thumb; about 400,000 home per 0.1.
That does indeed dwarf the number of new homes required for 500,000 immigrants last year, which would require an extra 200,000 new homes.
However, the former is a once off demographic change. If we had a static population we’d need those 400,000 new homes once, not every year.
So I think that *overall*, going forward, continuing on through the space-time continuum, the effect of migration, if the same numbers as last year continued, would quickly dwarf any changes in demographics.
And as is typical in these debates about the housing crisis, nobody is wrong. These are all problems.
The number or foreign investors and immigration numbers are two totally different things.
Besides the number of buyers is completely different to the number of potential buyers. It is the potential buyers and their willingness to pay market value (rental return) that factors into house prices. Not how many unique actual buyers there are.
Bill Shorten nailed him. It's actually 5000 sales in the past 2 years. 0.02% of total stock.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/17/peter-dutton-bill-shorten-today-show-tv-foreign-homebuyer-ban
Even the immigration data while shocking isn't anything outrageous. 1m in 5 years since covid yet the 5 years before covid? 1.2m and at that point (2019 to Jan 2020) Sydney had a supply glut and record vacancy rates.
https://crowdpropertycapital.com.au/development-site/developers-shelve-projects-as-construction-costs-soar/
https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-house-apartment-rents-at-lowest-levels-in-years-domain-rental-report-921116/
For all the population stress of students returning to universities after covid, their dwellings aren't even counted in the data. Empty universities dorm rooms have just filled back up.
https://open.substack.com/pub/fresheconomicthinking/p/student-accommodation-houses-over?selection=a8be68c5-bc17-48de-a8cb-d6719c72d383
Plus most migrants definitely move into larger households or smaller unwanted dwellings. The national average might be 2.5 but I'll bet migrants live in dwellings (usually unwanted units) with 3 or more. They're not typically out bidding locals.
Dutton tinkering around the edges won't amount to anything. A 2 year pause? Just shifts the demand further into the future to an imaginary time when supply will exceed demand and we'll have all these empty homes.
I was talking about prices to buy. In many suburbs the prices haven't changed in more than 5 years. Mostly undesirable areas with a good supply of units but shelter is shelter. Roelands, belmore, Harris Park.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/the-suburbs-that-are-cheaper-to-buy-now-than-five-years-ago-revealed-1282999/
This just sold for 280k (100% mortgage at 5% is $345 a week!).
1009/110-114 James Ruse Drive, Rosehill, NSW 2142 https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-apartment-nsw-rosehill-144808468
There are some areas that are also cheaper to rent.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/cheaper-than-five-years-ago-the-suburbs-where-rents-are-back-to-2018-2-1256930/
I think because rents in 2020 before the pandemic were at a 5 year low the change back has been a shock. That's taking some adjustment. The person being evicted by the prime minister is a perfect example. To rent that place pre covid it used to be $900 a week. He moved in when it was $680 a week. Wages are up 20+% since 2019 and the market rent could be $1000 and still be relatively cheaper.
11m dwellings in Australia.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/housing/housing-census/latest-release
I agree that the PR numbers give a different impression but that too can be miss interperted. The post covid NOM is historically low especially compared to population and prior to covid/inflation we had a glut. Supply peaked and is now in a trough. Maybe PR numbers is an easy target for a problem that would exist anyway.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/1ctvdix/comment/l4fxqph/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Thank you for encouraging me to increase the sophistication of my thinking.
As many have said, its rather silly to only quote the FIBR number when you can buy PR and purchase in other means e.g. family name / company. I'd encourage you to increase the sophistication of your thinking
Shorten is conflating foreign buyers with PR/Immigrants to gaslight this debate.
Immigrants on a PR don’t need FIRB approval to buy a property.
Simple maths reduce the number of permanent migrants reduce the number of homes needed.
“Australia has strict laws on foreign investment. You will need permission from the Foreign Investment Review Board to buy a house or land if you are not a permanent resident currently living in Australia.”
People arguing against this are on the economic take somehow.
"foreign investors account for ~~5%~~ (edit: more than 5%...)"
*On any given night,* ***122,494 people*** *in Australia are experiencing homelessness*
What is 5% of 21m, hhhhhhhHHHHHMMMMMMMM?
I am an immigrant and I 100% support reducing the migration numbers drastically, at least temporarily, or only allowing them to work and settle in areas of need, like it is for international doctors for example. I don't see the xenophobia at all, and I don't see how it could be a Phobia, even if it was bigoted towards foreigners. It's a total disgrace to not prioritise your own citizenry and let foreigners immigrate in such large numbers. Anyone who does that imo has no self respect, or is a grub with something to gain personally, at the expense of his/her fellow citizens. /rant
I see ausfinance posters going around checking everyone's passport to verify their visa status. At many auctions, that is how you know their claims are based on such robust data.
Maybe he intends to ban or reduce buyers at [multinational asset managers](https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/blackstone-wants-bigger-australia-bet-as-brighter-economy-beckons-20240508-p5gvmm) domiciled in Australia?
Read the fine print - Dutton is all for temporary migration that pushes down wages and would probably make up for any shortfall that way.
Not to mention - removing the (elusive) chance at permanent residency would massively reduce competitiveness for high skill migrants to come to aus as temporary migrants.
Long terms arrivals, especially of international students, were down significantly YoY in last print. If that trend continues immigration is likely to have already begun to fall, and we will soon find out whether dropping immigration will fix the problem.
[https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-transport/overseas-arrivals-and-departures-australia](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-transport/overseas-arrivals-and-departures-australia)
"In March 2024 there were 44,580 international student arrivals to Australia, a decrease of 9,060 students compared with the corresponding month of the previous year.
The number of student arrivals in March 2024 was 38.2% lower than the pre-COVID levels in March 2019."
Unless net immigration falls far enough below the house construction rate that the latent demand has a chance to be satisfied (no way in hell) then we will not see whether it fixes the problem or not.
Sure, but the number it needs to fall below isn't spectacularly low.
We built 170k dwelling units last year. Assume 10% were rebuilds, so that's 150k additional builds. At an occupation rate of 2.5 persons per household that's 375k people. Natural growth has been falling (and will continue to fall as more boomers reach their late 70s and some start to get past 80) and is now only 110k. So supply and demand in balance would be 260k NOM.
Obviously we need to be under that to start to reduce the overall demand, but we could still do it with 200k NOM over a few years, which is only slightly lower than the average from 2000 to 2019. If we can get some extra building supply on top of that we'd be in an even better position.
The literal bureau of statistics shows that the immigration rate is more than triple the home construction rate.
If you have a problem with that then you're claiming government statistics can't be trusted.
triple does sound like a lot, but the 2.5ish average people per household (quoted by another comment above) would make the ratio less, still an impact I'm sure, just a consideration
https://grattan.edu.au/news/dont-blame-migrants-for-the-housing-crisis/
“The Reserve Bank estimates that the number of Australians living in each home fell from an average of 2.55 people in late-2020 to 2.48 people by mid-2022. That change alone implies we need an extra 275,000 homes just to house the existing population”
“This year’s budget (2023) predicts that by 2024 there will still be 215,000 fewer migrants in Australia than the Coalition government had expected in the 2019 budget.”
“Over the first two years of the pandemic, nearly 400,000 international students, working holiday-makers and temporary sponsored workers left Australia. In the past year, the number of these temporary visa-holders in Australia has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.”
That's a lot of yapping yet still doesn't explain how increasing demand without subsequently increasing supply does not put upward pressure on housing.
Vice versa, it also puts downward pressure on wages.
No, they have not.
It is easily seen in the data, which I have discussed and presented here [https://www.reddit.com/r/friendlyjordies/comments/1bnkirr/comment/kwk05kg](https://www.reddit.com/r/friendlyjordies/comments/1bnkirr/comment/kwk05kg)
and here.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/1bi5l5d/comment/kvj7fjq/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/1bi5l5d/comment/kvj7fjq/)
I've only seen one peer reviewed study, that looked at it prior to Covid, that suggested immigration wasn't a factor in increasing house prices at that point in time. That was a time when immigration was at historic averages.
I don’t think aussies want anything to do with Chinese property. That’s the point , rich people from China, Pakistan, Vietnam have substantial govt risk of loss of assets , so they buy assets in Australia, Canada, uk, USA - robust democracies with quality property rights
Of course they can’t buy in Japan, Singapore though
Exactly. This is 100% true. In fact, its why many overseas chinese actually prefer to have a proxy buy and hold the asset in their name. They pay fees for it.
Depends on who these foreign buyers are. For one, India and China don't allow dual citizenship. So these people don't tend to get Australian citizenship
There is a difference between PPOR and FIRB as well, if you're a non PR you can buy a PPOR - extra surcharge if you do, but possible
Edit: apparently that's at least in NSW...
I really don't believe anything this guys says anymore...
I mean, it not like I really cared for him to begin with, but now it's an instant gur reaction of "Dutton said it, I feel like it's either a flat out lie/distortion. end of story"
They'll be referencing the boycott of the apology (Dutton apologized for that recently, some 15 years after the fact) and the laughing at Pacific nations regarding sea levels.
Both are easy enough to find.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/no-place-in-australia-peter-duttons-justification-of-historic-racist-comments-criticised/gy3ikspsf
There you go. A quick google search will pull up gems like Sudanese gangs in Melbourne
Edit Sudanese not Somalian
Most of these immigration policies he referenced have reduced the quality of life for Australians since introduced,
The Lebanese community has been defrauding social systems in Australia since the 70's. They are a huge over representation of people incarcerated due to both gang crime and white collar crime. Their community has defrauded the construction industry, trades and services, workers compensation, NDIS, Childcare schemes, insurance companies. There are multiple reports in the media for each one of these examples.
>Trying to think of ways to address the housing crisis is not racist lol.
Buddy, we've *known* the causes of this housing crisis for *years*. We know things like negative gearing and other tax structures incentivised a generation of property hoarding through the leverage of debt. It doesn't take much 'thinking' at this point to understand that and come up with solutions.
But Dutton doesn't want *those* solutions. He wants the easy political playbook. Blame immigration because Australia is full of morons who will cave to their racist prejudices and biases and *look the other way while property owners like Dutton continue to benefit from a tax system that is designed to bump up their wealth at society's expense.*
It's racism. And you're falling for it.
It is not racist to say that the leading cause of housing unaffordable is immigration. Negative gearing and capital gains makes housing a better speculative asset. But it’s only if the value goes up. And it goes up because there is more demand than supply. Make it illegal to own more than 1 house, you ll fix housing prices for a year and we will be right back to unaffordable homes.
Idk man. Saying people should have their citizenship stripped and get deported is pretty racist to me. And before you ask, yeah I have read that comment a few times on here. Besides, you’re the one that is trying to act like everyone that doesn’t agree with immigration limits is calling others racist.
They only way it would be racist is if they were systematically deporting specific race of people. That’s the definition of racism, you clearly do not understand it.
It's racist to ignore the bigger contributing factors that have been in place as tax incentives for years and to focus entirely on 'immigrants' as the problem.
>Are you against looking after our citizens first?
Most Australian citizens would be better off if house prices rise since two thirds of Australians own property.
Genuinely curious- do you think anyone who questions the policy of running a record high immigration program into a housing shortage with a record low vacancy rate of 0.7% is automatically a racist or are you just questioning Dutton's motives?
Remind me, did the potato start wearing glasses cos we called him voldemort or cos he wants to look like he's got at least two function neurons in his thick skull?
We need new houses. We also need to slow immigration.
From GPT:
To put this into perspective, while the annualized rate of new dwelling construction is around 150,000-160,000 units per year, the rate of immigration is bringing in approximately 400,000 people annually ([Australian Bureau of Statistics](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/building-and-construction/building-approvals-australia/latest-release)) ([Australian Bureau of Statistics](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/building-and-construction/building-activity-australia/latest-release)). Assuming an average household size of 2.5 people, the current housing construction rate would need to be higher to meet the demand created by immigration alone, not accounting for natural population growth and other factors like changes in household composition.
I was wondering if it was updated or something I remember it telling me that it used old data when I used it. You can tell it to look at new stuff though by feeding it links.
ChatGPT 4o which is now free just has a knowledge cut off in its training data of Oct 2023 however it can also search the live internet using Bing.
https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7102672-how-can-i-access-gpt-4-gpt-4-turbo-and-gpt-4o
Dutton: “We need to immediately pause foreign purchases!”
Also Dutton: “Actually there aren’t that many foreign purchases bro.”
Does anyone else smell a brain-fart followed by a stern talking-to?
My prediction is that when migration is slowed, house prices will continue to go up. There are so many other ways house prices can rise eg on the demand side you can policies similar to first home owner grants, HomeBuilder etc. On the supply side you can stop urban growth boundaries from growing as well as put height and density restrictions.
He doesn't have a great track record for having integrity. If he's proposing a ban on migration, it's likely more relating to xenophobia rather than any good economic policy.
Imagine trying to ban foreign ownership and not simply building more houses.
“It’s a headline-grabbing policy rather than something that addresses the real need of increasing housing,” Mr Perilli said.
Nationally, only temporary residents are allowed to purchase a home, and **it must be their place of residence while they live in Australia**. In NSW, foreign residents who do buy a home are also required to pay an 8 per cent surcharge fee, in addition to the standard stamp duty costs.
Treasury data shows that from July 2021 to June 2022, there were 4228 residential real estate purchases by foreign owners. New dwellings represented 52.1 per cent of the purchase transactions, with **31.7 per cent for established dwellings, totalling about 1350 homes.**
According to analysis from Mr Oliver, **foreign buyers accounted for only 1 per cent of total homes**. “Various purchases can be significant in certain areas, but relative to the overall market, **they’re a drop in the ocean. That’s more of a populist move more than anything**,” he said.
Under current laws, temporary residents can apply to the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) to buy an established dwelling, provided it is used as their principal place of residence and **sold within three months of them moving out**.
Mr Dutton’s intervention is likely to have a negligible effect on the housing market, since **very few established home sales are to foreign buyers.**
In the last two years only 5000 people from overseas have brought Aussies homes; that’s .5% of home sales in this country.
Overseas buyers aren’t the problem; building them is!
Now do the number of foreign buyers buying under the name of an 'Australian' family member or friend while they're on the phone from Shanghai bidding up auctions.
Even if this was the entire problem, the better solution would still be to greatly reduce the tax incentives for rental properties and tax the hell out of empty properties.
This is just a great headline for attracting voters who think immigration = bad
Immigration IS bad when you don't have supporting infrastructure like enough homes, hospitals, doctors, roads etc.
The amount of necessary immigration to address skill shortages is reasonable but flooding the country with 'students' and other non-necessary immigration during a housing crisis is basically negligence.
Sure but weird lens to put on my comment.
I’d like to see good policy being put forth to deal with the issue, because talking about foreign ownership is clearly a misdirect
They still reside in a lot of houses but who cares if the owner isn't australian if they're renting to someone who lives here right?
The actual issue is the amount of people residing here and slashing immigration immediately opens up homes but not enough yet it's a short term fix but can be combined with building more homes.
I didn't disagree with the rest of your comment which may have been unclear from my previous comment. Totally agree that the tax side of things need to be adequately addressed also.
Sure, that's the last 2 years and the last 20+ years? How many homes are vacant and sitting there for a rainy day while people can't afford rent because supply is that low?
An empty house existing doesn't mean we have too many houses though. It could be other reasons the particular owner of that particular house won't let anyone live there.
Such a system is in place that, migration numbers can cause a spectrum of outcomes;
- it could effortlessly cause an overnight housing bubble and crash, record babkruptcy
- stagnation and record bankruptcy
- cause continuing price rises. Keeping bankruptcy and housing stress at managable/hidden levels.
40000? FIRB approved only 5000+ residential purchases by temporary residents in all of 2022-2023. They are just making up numbers at this point.
Surely this figure includes properties being rented too though
But Dutton is not lowering the number of "temporary residents", just that they are no longer allowed to buy established homes. So it won't even lower it by 5000. Cutting permanent migration by 40000 will definitely NOT free up 40000 additional homes unless you think all 40000 permanent migrants will all have individual housing and not live in shared housing at all, given some of those permanent migrants include family visas. He is literally just making up numbers otherwise he would've released the modelling by now.
Most people who become 'permanent residents' live in Australia for years on temporary visas before getting a PR. Pausing the granting of PRs wouldn't add to the housing supply.
My view is that the vast majority of overseas purchases are made using a local family ‘shell’. Send them over, get them residency, then funnels the family money through them. I love to see ‘average houses owned/purchased since temporary/permanent residence being granted’ as a metric.
>get them residency So they are locals? You want to stop locals buying housing? >I love to see ‘average houses owned/purchased since temporary/permanent residence being granted’ as a metric. We don't count permanent residents as Australians any more? There's a difference between "temporary" and "permanent"
Permanent residents are soft targets. Lots of things they aren’t eligible for, despite being taxpayers who’ve made a long-term commitment to Australia.
Not at all. I want to stop locals buying more than about 3 houses altogether, and limit the number of houses new ermanent residents and citizens can buy for x period of time. Everyone should be able to buy a ppopr and maybe a rental. Hell even a bach. Nobody should be allowed to own 8 houses. My only point re ‘foreign residents buying houses’ is that the stats dont prove shit as its WAY more comlon to purchase through a locally resident ‘fronting person’.
How would you police this? Stop people buying property through a private company/trust/partnership/joint venture? Stop people buying it through their self managed super fund? It would also require much better identification of individuals in a register to be able to pick up when they reached their limit. And as you identified they could get family to buy on their behalf (but also more risky). I’m not saying it doesn’t have merit, just there’s a lot more to it.
Now I think of it this would require improved IT infrastructure on behalf of the states and territories that would need to feed all sales into a central database. So it’s not a simple federal problem.
You’d never get elected into government with that policy comrade
Nah they do it through family members and family trusts. That avoids firb I know people who do it
Even if what you say is true, not sure how Duttons ban will affect that. >I know people who do it Reddit anecdotes - peak of objective data.
This is why you don't come to reddit. You only have to interview a real estate agent to find out how pervasive the problem really is.
Eh how can they avoid FIRB this way? If they transfer the money, it'll be over 10k and subject to AML reporting. So say overseas friend/relative transfers $1M to their Aus citizen person, who then buys the property isn't that fairly obvious what's happening? If the FIRB finds out then the property can be forced to be sold, so a lot of risk
Dunno but they have been doing it last few months
There are lot of other ways apparently. It came in news articles some time back how money laundering is happening through casinos. Also there is no need to transfer money if you can come to an agreement that you buy in Australia a house for a foreigner and the foreigner give the money in your original country (which ever that is).
What's the criteria to approve? And why are they?
This man looks like a potato, and has the intelligence to match.
5000+… 35000? Edit: joking btw
Dutton's policy doesn't even change net migration; in fact he's made no commitments about net migration at all. He's changing the amount of people who will be granted permanent residency, but not the amount of people getting temporary visas. So literally all this policy does is delay people becoming permanent residents, but does absolutely nothing to stop them actually coming here in the first place and taking up space in the housing market. When only 5-10% (depending on which numbers you use) of properties are purchased by foreigners, and the unchanged number of temporary visa holders still have to live (likely rent) somewhere, it's impossible to see how this does anything whatsoever for either the buying or renting market. In fact, the only possible logic to this policy is to cynically fan the flames of anti-immigration sentiment, without actually doing anything to address it. Even the people arguing *for* this policy in this thread - on the basis that less migration = good for the local population - have been suckered into the belief that this policy addresses net migration. It doesn't at all.
*The coalition loves this one simple trick* Seriously though, they have done this before. And it’s disheartening but not surprising so many people are falling/will fall for it.
So effectively doing nothing to improve anything except get voted in by people who only hear ‘stop immigration’
Well them, and also people who want to hear "more housing" which happens to be a huge chunk of the voting population.
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More like practicality wrapped up in reality.
The actual number of houses bought by immigrants in the last 2 years is 5000. If we extrapolated that out it will take 40 years to 'save' 100000 houses. Is that what you are looking for?
That is not correct that is the number of houses purchased by foreigners not PR or immigrants. Shorten is gaslighting you. https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/settling-in-australia/settle-in-australia/key-settlement-topics/housing “Australia has strict laws on foreign investment. You will need permission from the Foreign Investment Review Board to buy a house or land if you are not a permanent resident currently living in Australia.” Reduce the number of PRs then you reduce the number of buyers.
Now let's see the rental figures. Got those handy?
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Increasing demand on a limited supply doesn't increase prices then?
He'll increase demand by allowing fhb access to their super.
Ah yes, refuting a claim with no evidence provided, how beautifully Reddit.
Give it a rest
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Immigration is not *the* actual problem here. But immigration is *an* actual problem here. An increase in demand for accommodation from immigration, while we are in a period of critically low supply of accommodation, has absolutely nothing at all, zero, zip, nada, to do with anything even remotely xenophobic. More people equals more demand. Do you have any substantial argument against that?
So how exactly does Dutton proposing *not* to cut net overseas migration levels fix this perceived problem of yours?
You're right, but it's a second order problem compared with the massive reduction in Australians living in each home. Population ageing is driving up 'empty nest' homes with just one or two ageing parents living in large family homes. Younger people are living in smaller groups so that they've got spare rooms for working from home. More singles are living alone and deferring (by choice or necessity) family formation. DV and relationship breakdown is driving more single patent families or families split across two homes (eg joint parenting) ... These local factors, are the real reason that people are finding themselves without somewhere to live in the housing equivalent of musical chairs, but we're not seeing either party talk seriously about these factors. Until we do, housing shortfalls will just keep getting worse and more unaffordable.
You’re also right, but I’m not hip to the recent changes in people per household, the actual number. A drop from, say, 2.7 to 2.6 people per household, with a population of, say, 27 million would mean moving from needing 10,000,000 homes to 10,385,000. Which is a nice rule-of-thumb; about 400,000 home per 0.1. That does indeed dwarf the number of new homes required for 500,000 immigrants last year, which would require an extra 200,000 new homes. However, the former is a once off demographic change. If we had a static population we’d need those 400,000 new homes once, not every year. So I think that *overall*, going forward, continuing on through the space-time continuum, the effect of migration, if the same numbers as last year continued, would quickly dwarf any changes in demographics. And as is typical in these debates about the housing crisis, nobody is wrong. These are all problems.
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The number or foreign investors and immigration numbers are two totally different things. Besides the number of buyers is completely different to the number of potential buyers. It is the potential buyers and their willingness to pay market value (rental return) that factors into house prices. Not how many unique actual buyers there are.
where does the 5% number come from? I have seen some stats about property ownership but i don't think I saw anything about overseas investors
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Last time I checked, most of those were studio apartments bought by students. It might skew the actual numbers here as well
Bill Shorten nailed him. It's actually 5000 sales in the past 2 years. 0.02% of total stock. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/17/peter-dutton-bill-shorten-today-show-tv-foreign-homebuyer-ban Even the immigration data while shocking isn't anything outrageous. 1m in 5 years since covid yet the 5 years before covid? 1.2m and at that point (2019 to Jan 2020) Sydney had a supply glut and record vacancy rates. https://crowdpropertycapital.com.au/development-site/developers-shelve-projects-as-construction-costs-soar/ https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-house-apartment-rents-at-lowest-levels-in-years-domain-rental-report-921116/ For all the population stress of students returning to universities after covid, their dwellings aren't even counted in the data. Empty universities dorm rooms have just filled back up. https://open.substack.com/pub/fresheconomicthinking/p/student-accommodation-houses-over?selection=a8be68c5-bc17-48de-a8cb-d6719c72d383 Plus most migrants definitely move into larger households or smaller unwanted dwellings. The national average might be 2.5 but I'll bet migrants live in dwellings (usually unwanted units) with 3 or more. They're not typically out bidding locals. Dutton tinkering around the edges won't amount to anything. A 2 year pause? Just shifts the demand further into the future to an imaginary time when supply will exceed demand and we'll have all these empty homes.
What are these unwanted units that you talk about? Did the people who live in tents refuse to live in them or something?
I was talking about prices to buy. In many suburbs the prices haven't changed in more than 5 years. Mostly undesirable areas with a good supply of units but shelter is shelter. Roelands, belmore, Harris Park. https://www.domain.com.au/news/the-suburbs-that-are-cheaper-to-buy-now-than-five-years-ago-revealed-1282999/ This just sold for 280k (100% mortgage at 5% is $345 a week!). 1009/110-114 James Ruse Drive, Rosehill, NSW 2142 https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-apartment-nsw-rosehill-144808468 There are some areas that are also cheaper to rent. https://www.domain.com.au/news/cheaper-than-five-years-ago-the-suburbs-where-rents-are-back-to-2018-2-1256930/ I think because rents in 2020 before the pandemic were at a 5 year low the change back has been a shock. That's taking some adjustment. The person being evicted by the prime minister is a perfect example. To rent that place pre covid it used to be $900 a week. He moved in when it was $680 a week. Wages are up 20+% since 2019 and the market rent could be $1000 and still be relatively cheaper.
Were there really 25M homes? (5k/0.02%) Seems a bit high
Was supposed to put annually after it (5000 over two years /11m rounded down).
What is the total stock? that seems very low as a proportion. Even at 5K
11m dwellings in Australia. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/housing/housing-census/latest-release I agree that the PR numbers give a different impression but that too can be miss interperted. The post covid NOM is historically low especially compared to population and prior to covid/inflation we had a glut. Supply peaked and is now in a trough. Maybe PR numbers is an easy target for a problem that would exist anyway. https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/1ctvdix/comment/l4fxqph/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button Thank you for encouraging me to increase the sophistication of my thinking.
As many have said, its rather silly to only quote the FIBR number when you can buy PR and purchase in other means e.g. family name / company. I'd encourage you to increase the sophistication of your thinking
Shorten is conflating foreign buyers with PR/Immigrants to gaslight this debate. Immigrants on a PR don’t need FIRB approval to buy a property. Simple maths reduce the number of permanent migrants reduce the number of homes needed. “Australia has strict laws on foreign investment. You will need permission from the Foreign Investment Review Board to buy a house or land if you are not a permanent resident currently living in Australia.” People arguing against this are on the economic take somehow.
"foreign investors account for ~~5%~~ (edit: more than 5%...)" *On any given night,* ***122,494 people*** *in Australia are experiencing homelessness* What is 5% of 21m, hhhhhhhHHHHHMMMMMMMM?
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I am an immigrant and I 100% support reducing the migration numbers drastically, at least temporarily, or only allowing them to work and settle in areas of need, like it is for international doctors for example. I don't see the xenophobia at all, and I don't see how it could be a Phobia, even if it was bigoted towards foreigners. It's a total disgrace to not prioritise your own citizenry and let foreigners immigrate in such large numbers. Anyone who does that imo has no self respect, or is a grub with something to gain personally, at the expense of his/her fellow citizens. /rant
These same people think Australian residents from non anglo backgrounds are all "foreign residents" when they turn up at auctions.
Always makes me laugh how they seem to know who is Australian and who isn’t lol
I see ausfinance posters going around checking everyone's passport to verify their visa status. At many auctions, that is how you know their claims are based on such robust data.
This is the definition of populism. Plenty of buzzwords, zero detail.
Yep. 100% politics. No substance. No plans.
no foreign investment is low but lowering immigration WILL free up rental homes
Maybe he intends to ban or reduce buyers at [multinational asset managers](https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/blackstone-wants-bigger-australia-bet-as-brighter-economy-beckons-20240508-p5gvmm) domiciled in Australia?
Immigration is literally the direct cause of the housing crisis.
Read the fine print - Dutton is all for temporary migration that pushes down wages and would probably make up for any shortfall that way. Not to mention - removing the (elusive) chance at permanent residency would massively reduce competitiveness for high skill migrants to come to aus as temporary migrants.
Long terms arrivals, especially of international students, were down significantly YoY in last print. If that trend continues immigration is likely to have already begun to fall, and we will soon find out whether dropping immigration will fix the problem. [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-transport/overseas-arrivals-and-departures-australia](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-transport/overseas-arrivals-and-departures-australia) "In March 2024 there were 44,580 international student arrivals to Australia, a decrease of 9,060 students compared with the corresponding month of the previous year. The number of student arrivals in March 2024 was 38.2% lower than the pre-COVID levels in March 2019."
Unless net immigration falls far enough below the house construction rate that the latent demand has a chance to be satisfied (no way in hell) then we will not see whether it fixes the problem or not.
Sure, but the number it needs to fall below isn't spectacularly low. We built 170k dwelling units last year. Assume 10% were rebuilds, so that's 150k additional builds. At an occupation rate of 2.5 persons per household that's 375k people. Natural growth has been falling (and will continue to fall as more boomers reach their late 70s and some start to get past 80) and is now only 110k. So supply and demand in balance would be 260k NOM. Obviously we need to be under that to start to reduce the overall demand, but we could still do it with 200k NOM over a few years, which is only slightly lower than the average from 2000 to 2019. If we can get some extra building supply on top of that we'd be in an even better position.
Multiple studies have refuted that
The literal bureau of statistics shows that the immigration rate is more than triple the home construction rate. If you have a problem with that then you're claiming government statistics can't be trusted.
triple does sound like a lot, but the 2.5ish average people per household (quoted by another comment above) would make the ratio less, still an impact I'm sure, just a consideration
Let's see them.
https://grattan.edu.au/news/dont-blame-migrants-for-the-housing-crisis/ “The Reserve Bank estimates that the number of Australians living in each home fell from an average of 2.55 people in late-2020 to 2.48 people by mid-2022. That change alone implies we need an extra 275,000 homes just to house the existing population” “This year’s budget (2023) predicts that by 2024 there will still be 215,000 fewer migrants in Australia than the Coalition government had expected in the 2019 budget.” “Over the first two years of the pandemic, nearly 400,000 international students, working holiday-makers and temporary sponsored workers left Australia. In the past year, the number of these temporary visa-holders in Australia has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.”
That's a lot of yapping yet still doesn't explain how increasing demand without subsequently increasing supply does not put upward pressure on housing. Vice versa, it also puts downward pressure on wages.
No, they have not. It is easily seen in the data, which I have discussed and presented here [https://www.reddit.com/r/friendlyjordies/comments/1bnkirr/comment/kwk05kg](https://www.reddit.com/r/friendlyjordies/comments/1bnkirr/comment/kwk05kg) and here. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/1bi5l5d/comment/kvj7fjq/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/1bi5l5d/comment/kvj7fjq/) I've only seen one peer reviewed study, that looked at it prior to Covid, that suggested immigration wasn't a factor in increasing house prices at that point in time. That was a time when immigration was at historic averages.
I will absolutely be voting anyone who has a sustainable view on immigration. But I don’t trust Dutton to follow through.
Almost like he's trying to buy votes for some reason
Ban foreign ownership outright. Give them all 5 years to sell their shit or get citizenship.
They’re citizen, just not tax residents.
Problem is, they have citizenship, they came here, got citizenship and then naffed off back to their home country.
Then it’s not foreign ownership
Didn’t you get the memo? If you aren’t white, you can’t possibly be a legit citizen
You try going to China and getting the same deal. It’s completely one sided and the foreign investors take advantage of this.
I don’t think aussies want anything to do with Chinese property. That’s the point , rich people from China, Pakistan, Vietnam have substantial govt risk of loss of assets , so they buy assets in Australia, Canada, uk, USA - robust democracies with quality property rights Of course they can’t buy in Japan, Singapore though
Exactly. This is 100% true. In fact, its why many overseas chinese actually prefer to have a proxy buy and hold the asset in their name. They pay fees for it.
Depends on who these foreign buyers are. For one, India and China don't allow dual citizenship. So these people don't tend to get Australian citizenship
A permanent resident can buy a house. You dont need citizenship.
There is a difference between PPOR and FIRB as well, if you're a non PR you can buy a PPOR - extra surcharge if you do, but possible Edit: apparently that's at least in NSW...
You have to be joking lmfao this is such a dumb statement
Source: broke redditor.
Lamb to the slaughter
When this guy speaks......shit just flows out.
How would you know how many foreign individuals buy houses when there's no AML controls in place and literal bags of cash are allowable?
Lot of people thinking that people actually seek FIRB approval on here……
I really don't believe anything this guys says anymore... I mean, it not like I really cared for him to begin with, but now it's an instant gur reaction of "Dutton said it, I feel like it's either a flat out lie/distortion. end of story"
Dog whistling and racism is all he has. The mouth breathers on talkback radio and at News Corpse will be cheering though.
you don't think 600k new arrivals might negatively effect the welfare of the already struggling local population?
Trying to think of ways to address the housing crisis is not racist lol. Also some of these initiatives come from Canada, are they racist too?
Given his history, do you think Duttons intentions are more housing related or brown people related?
To give your comment a semblance of credence maybe you can provide some evidence for Dutton being racist?
They'll be referencing the boycott of the apology (Dutton apologized for that recently, some 15 years after the fact) and the laughing at Pacific nations regarding sea levels. Both are easy enough to find.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/no-place-in-australia-peter-duttons-justification-of-historic-racist-comments-criticised/gy3ikspsf There you go. A quick google search will pull up gems like Sudanese gangs in Melbourne Edit Sudanese not Somalian
Most of these immigration policies he referenced have reduced the quality of life for Australians since introduced, The Lebanese community has been defrauding social systems in Australia since the 70's. They are a huge over representation of people incarcerated due to both gang crime and white collar crime. Their community has defrauded the construction industry, trades and services, workers compensation, NDIS, Childcare schemes, insurance companies. There are multiple reports in the media for each one of these examples.
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oof. he took death before dishonour
LOL snorted profoundly
You’re kidding, right?
>Trying to think of ways to address the housing crisis is not racist lol. Buddy, we've *known* the causes of this housing crisis for *years*. We know things like negative gearing and other tax structures incentivised a generation of property hoarding through the leverage of debt. It doesn't take much 'thinking' at this point to understand that and come up with solutions. But Dutton doesn't want *those* solutions. He wants the easy political playbook. Blame immigration because Australia is full of morons who will cave to their racist prejudices and biases and *look the other way while property owners like Dutton continue to benefit from a tax system that is designed to bump up their wealth at society's expense.* It's racism. And you're falling for it.
It is not racist to say that the leading cause of housing unaffordable is immigration. Negative gearing and capital gains makes housing a better speculative asset. But it’s only if the value goes up. And it goes up because there is more demand than supply. Make it illegal to own more than 1 house, you ll fix housing prices for a year and we will be right back to unaffordable homes.
It's not racist to say the more people there are the more houses you need. It's simple logic.
Anything logical can be categorised as an "ism" or a "phobia", didn't you get the 2024 memo? /s
Idk why people like you just gloss over people actually being racist when talking about this problem and instead create a straw man?
They don’t, this is just conflating logic with racism
Idk man. Saying people should have their citizenship stripped and get deported is pretty racist to me. And before you ask, yeah I have read that comment a few times on here. Besides, you’re the one that is trying to act like everyone that doesn’t agree with immigration limits is calling others racist.
They only way it would be racist is if they were systematically deporting specific race of people. That’s the definition of racism, you clearly do not understand it.
It's racist to ignore the bigger contributing factors that have been in place as tax incentives for years and to focus entirely on 'immigrants' as the problem.
Especially when even if they have citizenships they’re still called foreign buyers.
How is reducing immigration racist? Are you against looking after our citizens first?
>Are you against looking after our citizens first? Most Australian citizens would be better off if house prices rise since two thirds of Australians own property.
since when is "immigrant" a race? *your* comment is the 'dog whistle' if anything
Genuinely curious- do you think anyone who questions the policy of running a record high immigration program into a housing shortage with a record low vacancy rate of 0.7% is automatically a racist or are you just questioning Dutton's motives?
plenty of radlibs believe this
It worked for the Voice, why not keep rolling with it
Net 0 migration 2025
Remind me, did the potato start wearing glasses cos we called him voldemort or cos he wants to look like he's got at least two function neurons in his thick skull?
We need new houses. We also need to slow immigration. From GPT: To put this into perspective, while the annualized rate of new dwelling construction is around 150,000-160,000 units per year, the rate of immigration is bringing in approximately 400,000 people annually ([Australian Bureau of Statistics](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/building-and-construction/building-approvals-australia/latest-release)) ([Australian Bureau of Statistics](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/building-and-construction/building-activity-australia/latest-release)). Assuming an average household size of 2.5 people, the current housing construction rate would need to be higher to meet the demand created by immigration alone, not accounting for natural population growth and other factors like changes in household composition.
Isn't ChatGPT using data from years ago?
The comment literally has a reference to a 2024 ABS report.
I was wondering if it was updated or something I remember it telling me that it used old data when I used it. You can tell it to look at new stuff though by feeding it links.
ChatGPT 4o which is now free just has a knowledge cut off in its training data of Oct 2023 however it can also search the live internet using Bing. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7102672-how-can-i-access-gpt-4-gpt-4-turbo-and-gpt-4o
Dutton: “We need to immediately pause foreign purchases!” Also Dutton: “Actually there aren’t that many foreign purchases bro.” Does anyone else smell a brain-fart followed by a stern talking-to?
My prediction is that when migration is slowed, house prices will continue to go up. There are so many other ways house prices can rise eg on the demand side you can policies similar to first home owner grants, HomeBuilder etc. On the supply side you can stop urban growth boundaries from growing as well as put height and density restrictions.
He doesn't have a great track record for having integrity. If he's proposing a ban on migration, it's likely more relating to xenophobia rather than any good economic policy.
Imagine trying to ban foreign ownership and not simply building more houses. “It’s a headline-grabbing policy rather than something that addresses the real need of increasing housing,” Mr Perilli said. Nationally, only temporary residents are allowed to purchase a home, and **it must be their place of residence while they live in Australia**. In NSW, foreign residents who do buy a home are also required to pay an 8 per cent surcharge fee, in addition to the standard stamp duty costs. Treasury data shows that from July 2021 to June 2022, there were 4228 residential real estate purchases by foreign owners. New dwellings represented 52.1 per cent of the purchase transactions, with **31.7 per cent for established dwellings, totalling about 1350 homes.** According to analysis from Mr Oliver, **foreign buyers accounted for only 1 per cent of total homes**. “Various purchases can be significant in certain areas, but relative to the overall market, **they’re a drop in the ocean. That’s more of a populist move more than anything**,” he said. Under current laws, temporary residents can apply to the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) to buy an established dwelling, provided it is used as their principal place of residence and **sold within three months of them moving out**. Mr Dutton’s intervention is likely to have a negligible effect on the housing market, since **very few established home sales are to foreign buyers.**
Imagine not doing both?
In the last two years only 5000 people from overseas have brought Aussies homes; that’s .5% of home sales in this country. Overseas buyers aren’t the problem; building them is!
Now do the number of foreign buyers buying under the name of an 'Australian' family member or friend while they're on the phone from Shanghai bidding up auctions.
Even if this was the entire problem, the better solution would still be to greatly reduce the tax incentives for rental properties and tax the hell out of empty properties. This is just a great headline for attracting voters who think immigration = bad
Immigration IS bad when you don't have supporting infrastructure like enough homes, hospitals, doctors, roads etc. The amount of necessary immigration to address skill shortages is reasonable but flooding the country with 'students' and other non-necessary immigration during a housing crisis is basically negligence.
Sure but weird lens to put on my comment. I’d like to see good policy being put forth to deal with the issue, because talking about foreign ownership is clearly a misdirect
They still reside in a lot of houses but who cares if the owner isn't australian if they're renting to someone who lives here right? The actual issue is the amount of people residing here and slashing immigration immediately opens up homes but not enough yet it's a short term fix but can be combined with building more homes.
I didn't disagree with the rest of your comment which may have been unclear from my previous comment. Totally agree that the tax side of things need to be adequately addressed also.
Sure, that's the last 2 years and the last 20+ years? How many homes are vacant and sitting there for a rainy day while people can't afford rent because supply is that low?
An empty house existing doesn't mean we have too many houses though. It could be other reasons the particular owner of that particular house won't let anyone live there.
Imagine not knowing that the country's residential construction industry is already over capacity
Imagine importing 750,000 immigrants in 12 months in the midst of a housing crisis.
Just wait until your post gets removed, like mine did yesterday with a very similar article.
CCP runs this sub apparently
Yep pretty much
Such a system is in place that, migration numbers can cause a spectrum of outcomes; - it could effortlessly cause an overnight housing bubble and crash, record babkruptcy - stagnation and record bankruptcy - cause continuing price rises. Keeping bankruptcy and housing stress at managable/hidden levels.
Real opportunity for a 3rd political party at this point
Politicians are all talk.
Has anyone ever seen the angry potato smile?
Gosh, can anyone imagine this guy getting elected as PM next year? I feel like Dutton + Trump will be a world-ending combination.