Foreign speculators ruin the market for home buyers and renters
Media Release 20 April 2010
Queensland's DLP Senate team leader Tony Zegenhagen warns that Chinese and other foreign speculators are making home ownership harder for Australian families.
"Australia's relative stability and prosperity have encouraged foreigners to buy up big in the housing market," said Tony Zegenhagen, "and the trend has been greatly accelerated by the abolition of Federal Government restrictions on foreign ownership of real estate."
"A very large number of homes bought by foreigners in favoured suburbs of Brisbane, Sydney and other cities have been left empty, with no resident owners and not even tenants. The effect is harmful to home buyers and harmful to renters at every level. The supply of homes is artificially reduced and the cost of buying or renting is artificially inflated."
"Every foreign speculator who leaves an Australian home empty at the upper end of the market, threatens to make an Australian family homeless at the bottom of the market."
Tony Zegenhagen announced that the DLP will host a conference of all interested parties in Brisbane during the month of May 2010, with the aim of defining the scope of the problem and recommending appropriate policy responses. "Possible recommendations include a reintroduction of foreign investment guidelines and a form of taxation upon the owners of long-empty residential properties."
