ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
One of the nation’s favourite pastimes, speculating on property and over-leveraging themselves to the point where they’re one rate rise away from the street, is one step closer to being properly regulated today as auctioneers in Sydney will be required to say ‘gambling responsibly’ before the bidding starts.
Sydney, one of the world’s largest open-air sewers (both physically and culturally), has gone off the deep end in terms of property value where it has now reached the point where buyers who don’t have any help from their family in the way of capital or cash, are effectively locked out of buying a house.
They can still buy apartments, says the new New South Wales Treasurer and lifelong public servant Matthew Kean, which are much the same as houses except for people who don’t have a go in life and come from families that are intergenerationally lazy.
“Not every apartment block in Sydney is like the Leaning Tower of Parramatta,” he laughed.
“And I agree with you. I’m a small L Liberal. I know that the Sydney property market is out of control but how do you stop it? Do you put rates up and force people to either play chicken with the 6:32am to Central or run away and join the French Foreign Legion? Do you let inflation go up to the point where Sydneysiders just work and pay their mortgage and don’t do anything else?”
“I guess we could heavily tax property investors? Like, make it easy to buy your first house. Normal stamp duty. But if you want to buy a second home, perhaps we jack the stamp duty up to 20%? Want to buy a third? Jack it up to 50%,”
“That would be the common sense thing to do. But we can’t do that now. It’d torpedo too many people,”
“So maybe, we should just have auctioneers say ‘Gamble Responsibly before an auction so if we do make any changes, buyers can say we didn’t warn them.”
More to come.
