Property Council of Australia Chief Executive Mike Zorbas has urged federal politicians to create properly zoned land to help housing, including sites for retirement villages.
“The slowness and costliness of state planning systems in producing new homes, and property assets of any kind, adds significantly to the upwards cost pressure on housing across the spectrum - whether to-buy, or to-rent or key worker or social housing,” Mike told the Senate Committee on Housing Affordability in Australia last Friday.
Stanton Dahl Architects’ Renovate or Detonate webinaire, hosted by DCM Group’s CEO Chris Baynes heard 65% of 2,200 retirement villages nationwide were built before 2000.
Mike advocated the passage of the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) and the creation of a National Housing Supply and Affordability Council to address the worsening housing crisis.
“By the government's own conservative numbers, we are more than 160,000 homes behind the national starting line over the next decade.
“Currently there is a 30% Australian Government withholding tax rate on overseas investment by pension, and public and private funds in Build to Rent housing, double the rate of tax on other property types like offices and logistics assets,” he said.
“A 15% managed investment trust (MIT) withholding tax rate would be comparable with the rate paid by our domestic superfunds who invest in US, UK and Canadian real estate markets.”
