Letters from the Herald-Sun, both concerning housing, 7/12:
Why have our regulators allowed the building of suburbs full of large homes without eaves and with no room for shade trees? These homes require air conditioners and those coolers consume energy while pumping hot air into the small gaps between the buildings. The same developments have no associated energy-efficient public transport. Contact your local councillors and representatives and demand answers and accountability, followed by the appointment of planners who know what common sense is.
– Paul Worden. Portland
I suspect such poor planning is because of corruption and influence from property developers, who can bribe councilors and politicians in developers’ favor.
16/12:
Overseas buyers swoop on homes
The decision by Kevin Rudd to eliminate any residency requirements when purchasing Australian real estate has propelled prices into the stratosphere. Even 24-hour junkets are now being organised to purchase property and then fly back over seas, particularly from China.
Any auctioneer would have noted that since March this year, when any form of residency requirement was lifted, the successful buyer was almost inevitably from overseas. How does the PM expect every day Australians to compete with a plethora of multi-millionaires? Prices have become obscene. A million dollars, or close enough to, has now become an everyday benchmark. On the basis that real estate doubles roughly every 10 years, our children can look forward to paying at least $2 million for that same property.
– Lou Coppola, Hawthorn East
I wonder if this baffling and counterintuitive decision to make the housing market even more unsustainably competitive is because the Prime Minister has contacts in China? It makes being a citizen rather pointless – why bother, when non-citizens are given the same privileges?
“High property prices should be a warning for Singaporeans”, Asian Correspondent. Singapore also has a housing affordability crisis, brought on by both inflation and overpopulation. The only people who benefit are investors (a dishonest way to make money, in my view). As pointed out, one’s house might be worth a million dollars, but it is not the same as having money in a bank that can be accessed (unless you sign up for a dubious “reverse mortgage” scheme). High property values also mean council rates go up, making life even more difficult for home owners who don’t have a high income of real money.
And as for the “net worth” of property owners going up – well, yes, that’s true. But it’s not much use to home owners, who don’t actually get that money unless they sell their house and don’t need to buy another one. The only people who really benefit from houses rising ahead of inflation are those with investment properties, and they do it at the expense of those trying to enter the market to buy one single home.
A house should first and foremost be a place to live in. The property market is corrupted by greed and is out of control, and if the government had any sense of social justice, it would abolish investor-favoring schemes such as negative gearing – and also, of course, reduce population growth so housing demand falls.
“Melbourne property market bounces back”, H-S, 21/12. I am sick of seeing articles exulting over rising house prices, this being one. The spokesperson quoted in the article is from the Real Estate Institute Victoria:
Homebuyers would face rising costs if the industry failed to build houses at a rate that matched the population growth, Mr. Larocca said.
“We would like to see an increased rate in construction of housing.
“Unless that occurs, we’re likely to see next year that prices will continue to rise,” he said.
“It really is supply and demand. While the population continues to increase unless more houses are put on the market, the demand will continue to be more pronounced.”
Well, duh, reduce population growth and you won’t have to smother more land with unsustainable housing estates?
“Homing in on the big decisions”, H-S, 1/12. Articles like this make me despair; Melbourne is on its way to becoming a nightmare megacity.
But the days of larger homes may be numbered as new home seekers are pushed farther from the city in search of affordable land. Infrastructure – public transport, schools and hospitals – are incredibly expensive and cannot keep pace. Aside from those who are willing to put up with a commute to the city of more than an hour each way, our rising population will be increasingly squashed into existing urban boundaries aided by government polices that promote higher-density living. Developers will continue knocking down existing homes to make way for multiple units, to the anger of existing home owners, who will be forced to sit back and watch as the character of their neighbourhood changes. Our way of life is about to change dramatically in the next couple of decades thanks to higher fertility rates and the government’s drive to boost our population through migration. Australia’s current population of 22 million is expected to reach 35 million by 2049. To fit everyone in, someone’s dream will have to be shattered.
“Houses too big, say Greens”, SMH, 1/12. Houses built since the 1990s have become obscenely oversized behemoths, as the Greens political party point out.
The Government should consider “putting the brakes” on developers who are building ever larger houses on relatively small lots, he said. He also believed it was time to discuss imposing limits on how large new houses could be.
Of course, some will snipe that this is “Government interference” and “social engineering”, but regulations are necessary in any society. My parents’ home – the one I grew up in (family of 4) – would be tiny by today’s standards; it was built in the late 1940s. I am not sure how many squares it is, but it is a 1-storey weatherboard with: 3 bedrooms (originally 2, before the previous owners added an extension), a hall, 1 bathroom & toilet, 1 kitchen, 1 dining room, 1 laundry, 1 living room. Admittedly an extra room or two would be nice (not to mention another toilet!) as possessions accumulate! The Google Maps image below shows the house (at bottom of picture) beside a newer (1-storey) one built a few years ago.
