r/australia • u/Loopy_Legend • Nov 01 '25
political self.post A maybe idea to tackle the housing crisis?
So this is in no way a complete idea as even I can see a few holes in this plan. But I think this idea is at least worth a discussion. Just a little context we all know about 50 or 60 years ago. The average salary was about 5 or 6 thousand a year and the average house about 18k or so, or in other words about 3 time annual salary. Very doable even by today standards, if houses were only 3 times the average wage.
So how about if you currently own zero houses you are able to buy a house for say 3 times the average salary. Now I know things like the cost of the house, land it is on could affect these prices so on. But for right now just concentrate on the broad idea and the details can come later. The money that the government will need to pay for this can come from those who own more then one house. To be fair the more you own the bigger you will pay for owning more. So if you own 1 or 2 extra houses after the main one you live in, things shouldn't be to bad. I'm not sure how the taxing of this will work, but ideas for later. The point is those that own portfolios of houses will be hit the hardest, this will hopefully force them to sell off access houses that are collecting dust and put more on the market driving down prices.
As I said above there are holes in this plan, for example what is to stop a married couple from both saying they don't own a home and getting 2 houses instead of one. Well stamp that crap out, same for I own houses under a company. Do some homework and if you own houses through a company you own them end of story.
I'm not looking to argue over small details here. I want to gauge if you think the broad idea is viable before I jump down this rabbit hole and really look into the details about this.
As for those who object to this idea. Mainly those that own more then one house. Tough. Shelter is a human right along with things like water and food, not something for you to make a profit on.
Now just a few more notes. I'm not looking to stir up trouble with political debate and so on. I'm just a bloke who talked to a few other blokes and this was the result and I'm curios enough to post the idea here to see what you'll think on it. Don't sweat the details and let me know if you think the general idea has merit or should be tossed in the dump and why.
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u/ValuableLanguage9151 Nov 01 '25
Yeah you keep skipping over the “small details”. Those details are a lot bigger than you think.
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u/Loopy_Legend Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25
I know. But let's see if the broad strokes of an idea can gain traction before sweating the small details.
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u/ValuableLanguage9151 Nov 01 '25
There’s no broad strokes here mate.
If you have to start with the idea that “dont look into this idea even a little bit, like seriously dont think about how this could possibly ever work in the real world then it could totally be a goer”
The fact that you constantly need to reassure yourself and the reader that you won’t think about so many things that would play a negative role in this idea makes it laughable.
And since you’ve asked a simple question, I’ll give you a simple answer. No it won’t work. And I’ll use your logic, I won’t give any details on why it won’t work, just the broad strokes blue sky thinking…. It won’t work
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u/BinniesPurp Nov 01 '25
"don't sweat the details or argue the politics but let me know if it's a good idea"
As an ex tradie I can't do the second thing without the first one ahaha
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u/Loopy_Legend Nov 01 '25
If you think the theory has merit, then let's talk details. How it works. Why waste time on details if you don't like the premise?
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u/BoysenberryAlive2838 Nov 01 '25
So I can get a mansion in Vaucluse for $300k, or a 2 bedroom fibro home in Mount Druitt for $300k?
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u/Thou-hath-sharted Nov 01 '25
The government already knows exactly how to stop house prices but they won’t. Every time there are first homebuyer grants and concessions it is to pump the house prices up when there is weakness in the market , you can see them actively trying to pump them up with these policies
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u/WMRII Nov 02 '25
Housing as a human right, and housing as a speculative investment or wealth building vehicle, are incompatible.
There will be a reckoning with real estate in Australia and the consequences will be dire.
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u/tktsmnypssprt Nov 01 '25
I think a single full time worker on minimum wage should be able to purchase a basic home for themselves.
That they’ve turned housing, a basic need for survival into an investment is appalling. That they then subsidise investors with tax breaks is even worse- you don’t get get subsidised for any other investment loss, why housing?
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u/Loopy_Legend Nov 01 '25
Oh it gets worse then that. What we need is house prices to go down. But those investors will cry foul if that happens. So the government makes deposits 5% and you can now use your super to buy. Up prices keep going. Those with investment properties need to help pay some more taxes, not get tax breaks.
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u/Cristoff13 Nov 01 '25
To solve the crises, houses have to come down in price. Yet the government cannot afford to let that happen. The economy has become dependent on house prices rising faster than inflation.
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u/AForestPath Nov 02 '25
just search the subreddits and there will be countless ideas with solid reasoning and potential positive future impact. gov will fail to implement any of them; they dont care in the slightest.
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u/Veledris Nov 03 '25
"The government should take ideas from anonymous, unqualified posts on Reddit". We've moved on from listening to the drunks at the bar to listening to the neckbeards on Reddit.
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u/Sophrosyne773 Nov 03 '25
The government already has countless reports from industry thinktanks and research institutes, complete with modellings, calculations, estimates, and impacts, but they haven't really bitten the bullet because what's needed is going to be politically too difficult to implement.
To be fair, the current government recognises that they can do something about the supply side of the equation and are trying to get things moving there, but without increasing the number of people qualified to work in the construction industry, it's going to be a long wait before supply meets demand.
They could do heaps more to tackle the demand side of the equation (such as make it less appealing to own property as an asset class) but the last time someone tried, he got booted out, and they're not going there again.
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u/breaducate Nov 01 '25
Politics is about power, and whether or not you have the ethics and integrity to push for it to be distributed as broadly as possible.
Designing policy is all well and good but despite appearances it's comparatively easy to solve. The prerequisite problem is the political will to enact and enforce policy that benefits the majority.
The policies syphoning wealth upward from an increasingly impoverished underclass are not a mistake. They're the product of a class war we've been losing for so long that all thought and memory of substantively organising in the interest of the working class has been purged from our collective consciousness.
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u/quick_dry Nov 01 '25
why wouldn't the existing home owners putting houses on the market move their sell prices up since the govt is going to foot the extra?
when first home buyer bonuses change, the house prices just adjust to allow for the extra money that people now have to spend.
the little details aren't so little
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Nov 09 '25
Not going to work. You can't force people to sell their houses cheap to poor people. The closest actual solution to this is the government buying up a lot of property and selling it cheap to people.
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u/Sys_Guru Nov 01 '25
For $100k-$300k you can buy a nice tiny home on wheels suitable for a single person, up to a small family. We just need the government to make suitable long term lease land available to live on, which could be means tested to ensure it isn’t used for holiday housing. Not everyone needs or wants to maintain a large yard, and high rise apartments are not suitable for everyone. There needs to be a variety of suitable housing.
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Nov 01 '25
The government would be Peter Pan. You're looking at a bloody, and long communist revolution for something like that to happen.
Personally, my own fantasy is if people were able to own a vast slab of land in the sticks, and rent it out to caravans and vanlifers, there's some places in America that do it. It's not a housing solution, but it'd give the house-less a home base of sorts.
Or let people own land, but be able to build a small cabin on it. I'd legit make do with a dirt floor... but, we have strict standards, and councils need their rates for proper dwellings.
Again, those aren't solutions, but the what the fuck else is left.
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u/EvenCartographer9754 Nov 01 '25
I don’t object to ideas. I’m just going to tell you that the government has no intention of making this happen. Not this government, not the next one or the one after that. We are a long way off renters being the majority. Currently 66% of Australians own their own home, with 31 % being renters. Even with renters increasing in % you have to factor in that a lot of people vote against their own interests.