Ironically, young Australians are most in favour of the economic growth via immigration and low birth rates model....the wealthy don't even have to try anymore, lol

When I was young I had to make a lot of sacrifices before I could get on the first rung of the property ladder. However, we didn't have the distraction of all the electronic gadgets that people demand and pay for now, the overseas holidays, clothes, entertainment, new cars etc.

We shared accomodation, rode to work on bicycles, no overseas holidays and we made everyday savings and walked everywhere. No telephone bills, no first home buyers supplement, first baby bonus, no car payments, no expensive entertainment.

Sure times were different with different priorities, but a shared house with 4 others helped me save. A training in the war years taught me how to be very careful with money and I still buy all my clothes second hand. I was paid 25 shillings a week during my two years national Service for the first 12 months. That alone teaches you the value of money. I never bought anything unless I saved the cash to buy it. (apart from a mortgage) Unfortunately, present society is not taught the magic of time and compound interest. It is very much a NOW society and instant gratification.

When we did get our first home it was a two bedroom weatherboard place with an outside toilet, but it was a start with no furniture and we sat on the floor on cushions before buying some second hand stuff. It wasn't easy. It never is.

One factor is we have NO homeless refugees but thousands of homeless Australians.

The Government via the charities house them they drive the prices up the number of available houses down.

The only winners are the landlords, refugees and the charities.

If it is good enough for the UN to give them a tent then so should we or at least make them work for what they get.

...The simple solution to the housing crisis and subsequent homelessness, a crisis of over costing on both ownership and rental fronts caused exclusively by speculation, is Government sponsored reduced-price rental occupancy. This effectively divorces families from the otherwise unbearable burden of market manipulation. Forcing wage and fixed income earners to compete with speculators in a drifting market, is inconceivably mad.

...A system of rental subsidies based on need; currently and successfully in operation for low income recipients on pensions in this country, needs urgent expansion, and would (IMO), be more egalitarian in nature than current wasteful maternity leave schemes built on political expediency.

Incentivising property investors aggravates the housing situation for the poor as it depends on and promotes our current competitive economic model in which there are always winners and losers. It depends on perpetual economic growth of a system which we know to be unsustainable. While it may provide funding for more affordable housing in the short term, “investors” want profit, and at some stage will also want their capital back with interest.

In any proposal for more affordable housing we should ensure that the urban poor are embedded and their short and long term situation is enhanced rather than undermined by the proposal.

The current response to the urban poor is to “welfarise” them, providing “charity” out of the “noblesse oblige” perspective which makes the propertied feel justified but the poor feel like crap.

A more appropriate response would be recognition of urban landrights for the unemployed (and responsibilities related to that land right). This could create sustainable work in housing, food gardening and community development initiatives.

To develop this opportunity would not require a landrights campaign as we could start from here and now with what many unemployed on the dole already have – public housing. To recognise the secure land access they already have as essentially a landright would simply require the acceptance of the related responsibilities and recognition of the performance of those responsibilities to the land. The primary responsibility would be to use the land sustainably for the reasons such a right exists – establishment & maintenance of secure shelter, food growing and community development.

Social inclusion through building/maintenance of public housing, sustainable community food gardening and community development initiatives would change NIMBY attitudes to public housing. Vegetable gardening in your neighbourhood would cultivate exuberant vitality and energy – vim - turning NIMBY into VIMBY! (vegetables in my backyard)

Support for public housing would lead to an increase in supply, taking the heat out of the housing market for all – a trickle up benefit for a change!

For proposed Centrelink reform proposal see -
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Change-Centrelink-Activity-Test/111159512287661?id=111159512287661&sk=info

Philip S Would you support this?

Give refugees & the unemployed the CHOICE of 15hr/wk building public housing & food gardens for their keep.

With globalisation, employment and UNemployment will be distributed more evenly around the world and, until the population of our own region is much more evenly distributed & the standard of living is better balanced, people will continue to be pushed & pulled to Australia.

I don't believe there is anything civilised that can be done to stop increasing numbers of people wanting to come here. If I was facing a lifetime of danger or poverty I would gladly risk my life for a chance to be here.

Our desperation to protect our borders shows just how convinced many Australians are that our way of life is threatened by the cost of such inflows. Whatever the benefit that immigration may bring, they fear massive job and housing pressures & a blowout in welfare.

In our desperation, even work for the dole has been proposed as a deterrent to asylum seekers and as an offset to costs of dealing with them. Of course this disregards how counter-productive and costly work for the dole has already proven to be.

Instead I would like to propose that the poor, including refugees and unemployed, should be welcomed to choose (or reject) voluntary community work.

With TAFE Outreach support, one of their choices should be to help build suburban public housing, involving choices from bookwork to labouring. The building should start from a community room providing facilities and interim accommodation.

A food garden should supplement Centerlink's payments.

In essence, the current arrangements to satisfy mutual obligations where over 55's can choose 15hrs/wk work for approved community organisations should be an option for all.

Because this would not involve coercion & would provide food, housing security and social integration, it would be much more effective & attractive than the work for the dole proposals gaining in support. It would not only provide valuable work but would lay the foundations for the sustainable development which we all need to support.

Please see -
http://ntw.net46.net/NTWmodel/NTWModeloverview.htm

Why do we have unaffordable housing and homelessness? Because population growth is too high and infrastructure is not keeping up. The temporary solutions lie in rent relief and releasing more land but the long term solution lies in stabilising population numbers. A little creative thinking too such as helping retirees move to regional centres and away from major centres would reduce housing pressure on those who have to earn their living in the city. To assume, however, that population growth is inevitable and good is basically to sabotage any other solutions you might come up with.

The promised return of affordable housing could even now, swing the election back to Labour!
They need to get cracking and nut out a policy now, even if that means a few of them lose out somewhat, on their personal housing investments!
They could afford to kick start more public housing by repealing negative gearing, and use the 5 billion PA or thereabouts, that they'd save, to provide low cost housing.
This money could be pooled and allowed to grow, to ultimately make more and more housing affordable for more and more!
Some of it could be invested in the construction of new high rise towers, with the top half reserved for the upmarket market, the bottom two floors reserved for commercial ventures, and the lower half able to be eventually bought via very low start rent arrangements?
[This would effectively remove any possibility of the construction of high rise ghettos.]
And or, brand new completely self contained new towns alongside, very rapid rail links.
Rapid rail could virtually pay for itself, with the subsequent sale of resumed and rezoned surplus land.
This would mean, the govt would be able to house many more, keep up with any new demand, and eventually have any and all outlays returned!
Its too easy!
It would however, put the skids under house prices, and not before time!
Come-on, we have the highest median house prices in the English speaking world, and Sydney is now the most expensive city in the world?
[We elect leaders to solve problems, not create a patent plethora of them, via criminal incompetence or inherent corruption!]
I mean, better a progressive and managed reduction now, via this or similar measures, rather than a disastrous economy crippling housing market bubble burst latter! Which is the direction we are currently heading?
Rhrosty.

Snake has point, people move out of their parents home with the expectation of been able to have the same lifestyle, or a better one that they enjoy there. Alot of the time they move from a family home where all the expensesand costs involved with running that how have been upkept by someone else without them really having any idea what costs are actually involved. I am a young stay at home mother with two children, my own home, 2 reliable cars and even some new peices of fruniture! I do not receive a welfare payment and our family income has never been above $50,000 p/a. Proof it can be done.
However, we don't have all the latest "must haves", an expensive holiday for us is $1000 for ALL expenses. We dont drink much, dont smoke or have any other expensive habits and yet think ourselves as pretty well off.
I agree that one of the problems seem to be that everyone flocks to the CBD, and that yes, more could be done to create jobs else where. But for those who are homeless and do have skills have they looked further then the outer suberbs? Rural australia has plenty of jobs going, alot of the time with accomidation offered as well, yes it may mean moving and yes it may mean rolling up the sleeves and getting dirty but surely its better then living on the streets?
I am of the opinion that sometimes to often people expect someone else to solve their problems for them instead of trying to help themselves. But I will also agree that housing affordabilty in the city is just crasy.

It is probably not worth the paper trying to argue with those who believe the spin that investors cause high prices through 'negative gearing'.

However, residential housing is a very poor investment for anyone wanting extra money to live on and for a stake in superannuation. Simply put, the risks are high (that IS right, isn't it tenants?) and the returns if any are poor.

Property management is costly, adds another dimension of risk and it is all care and no responsibility. For starters, for some reason known only to REAs, young women 'who present well' are put into the position of managing rentals. Most have yet to manage their own house and many have had mum waiting on them and dad 'taking care of things'.

It is all "Call out a tradesman" for the most minor household events that any mum or dad could have solved in a trice. Such as a blocked drain from hair or "Hot water that never gets hot", but is actually the system running dry from lack of top-up. Anyone ever wondered why rentals have so many 'urgent' trades call-outs when such visits are rare to a privately owned and occupied home? Or why paint, floor coverings and now even kitchens have such short life spans in rentals?

Anyone who believes that 'investors' in rental property do well should go to a meeting of one of the very amateurish property owners' groups. There it will be obvious that the Ferraris promised by the white shoe brigade are in fact secondhand Korean wheels, and the people attending wear wearing fashion from Target, with sandals. All are mums and dads 'investors' frightened of the stockmarket (with good cause where they have previously dealt with financial 'advisers'!) and all hope for a return one day. They are presently sacrificing their quality of life and recreation time for dreams of returns 'one day', in the future.

tbc..

contd..

Contrary to what the media says to make stories, homes in reasonable locations were always expensive. Intending buyers sacrificed for many years, taking out a personal loan to assist the deposit. That was when there were no computers, communication gear and other lifestyle consumables to spend $$ on.

The high demand for housing comes from immigration that requires the equivalent of several large coastal cities be built annually. As well, buyers (and tenants!) demand new and with multiple bathrooms, separate lounge/dining, built-in robes, airconditioning, close proximity to facilities and so on as a BARE MINIMUM. Ever costed all of those add-ons? What about the cost of maintaining them while trying to pay the mortgage?

landrights4all - Which part do you want supported?

I hope it is not the basic economic part.

Gavin, infrastructure and the bush is a double edged sword, because once you provide the infrastructure, up go the prices.

As for affordability, as usual, it's always someone else's fault.

Not wanting to give up their social life, or, having mobile phones, foxtel and any other item that require money has nothing to do with it either hey.

Another problem many young ones face today, is that they often want THE HOUSE, not just A HOUSE and there in lies the problem.

Lower their standards for their first home, buy some, or find some hand me down furniture and you may find they can actually afford a house after all, because they have to realize that a simple late a day costs almost two grand a year.

It's all too often about choices that makes housing unaffordable.

always good to play the victim. My father in law and family lived in a tin shed with no power or hot water for years while saving for a house. Never had we had such a pack of whingers who want everything but won't sacrifice anything to get it. If you stop playing the victim card you might be surprised how easy it is today compared to 50 years ago.

Spot on runner, many today can afford the $300K house, but they want the mansion.

I heard a great saying some time ago about the young ones.

Where we started at the bottom and worked up to where our parents were, the young ones want to start from where we are now.

Owning a house is often about life's choices, and then there are those who will never own a house simply because they won't make the commitment.

Just lime there are so e who won't take a high paid mining job, because they won't give up the drugs.

...The majority view on these pages indicates a disturbing confusion between "cause and effect".

...The housing market remains artificially inflated, (overpriced) and so to most young people, represents the unachievable dream.

Diver Dan, you can buy a house in the likes of Redcliffe QLD for less than $300,000.

25min to the Brisbane air port, rail link coming, 35 min from the CBD.

Whats unaffordable about that?

Now if young ones want 'the house' instead if 'a house', then that's 'their' choice.

There are affordable houses available, they simply have to lower their standards.

Another goverenment stuff up, from both sides, was the way the first home owners grant was administered.

It should never have been a gift, rather, it should have only ever been a low/no interest loan, repayable when the house was sold, because if it were a loan, the funds could have been used many times over to help thousands more get into their first home.

More poor policy by out of touch law makers.

Housing be it affordability and access in the rental market is the top most critical issue facing Australia. Prices are far too hight. We are at a bottleneck.

Homelessness and what that means to those most disadvantaged is a blight on the souls of us all, as Australians.

Public Transport must come second alongside cost of living generally.

The widening divide, means the falling equity between the top and bottom is impacting on the mobility and productivity of our future, as a Nation. It strips our social cohesion as a nation and our social capital.

It appears the youth as well as the elder Australian's are in a dire position. How directions of future housing policy directives pan will make or break this nation regardless of the condition of the overall economy is reported in the media.

Housing is an enormous issue Australia has to break-through... now.

http://www.miacat.com/

Miacat - Lots of latching on to elements of truth to allow blaming the victim in these posts ... but typically very little coming to grips with fundamentals. It should be recognised that the self confessed owners posting here actually have no interest in making housing more affordable - their fundamental interest is in watching their SECTIONAL & personal asset grow in value as a result of the community building & infrastructure inputs of the ENTIRE population, which includes the landless who this article addresses.

I agree with you Miacat, but I reckon you'll find precious little support here from others.

Chris
@landrights4all
http://ntw.net46.net/NTWmodel/NTWModeloverview.htm

landrights4all,
I am very lucky to live in a "Town that Works", We are a small community and in the 5 yrs I have been here there has been a caravan park, a Community BBQ Area, a Mens Shed, Improved show grounds and even an overhaul on our health centre. All because of hard working community groups and volunteers or (in the health centres case) community donations. People even "Passed round the hat" to help a young apprentice to buy his bosses business when his bossed passed from cancer after the banks had turned him down. Our Grocery store is still here because of some community members that helped out the owner when it was going down the gurgler. The entire town gets behind fundraising efforts and makes it happen, even those with little to give. The house I bought (3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, formal dining, lounge, sunroom, workshop, double garage and a double block) was just under $100,000. The most expensive sold here for around 15yrs. Very affordable.
So, in a long winded way I'm trying to say...I think your on to something, as long as people are willing to help themselves by helping others. It also probably helps that the nearest capital city is 400kms away. I can see what you are saying, affordability in a lot of places is crazy. And somehow it needs to change, but a lot of that has to do with supply and demand.