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I was fortunate enough to attend the SQM seminar last week as Louis Christopher – one of the most well respected voices in the real estate industry for his balanced assessment of market data – presented a state by state rundown of projected activity over 2014.
<a target="_blank" href="#https://www.sqmresearch.com.au/capitalcitiesreports.php">Louis predicts</a> Sydney’s established housing market will see a 15-20% ‘rapid rise’ over the course of 2014, highlighting the middle suburbs in particular to capture the overflow of demand, as inner city development constraints force consumers outwards.  
There’s been plenty of talk regarding housing affordability and the very real risk associated with an unsustainable boom in values, with some claiming – based in part on our low interest rate environment – that any mention of a concern is a mere myth.  
When asked from an audience member at the seminar if first home buyers were being crowded out of Sydney, Louis concluded they were – and indeed it would be hard to deny.  
Investor activity has dominated the Australian property market over the last 12 months or so.  Banks are bidding for buyers in a highly competitive environment, and the lion’s share of mortgage demand is being eaten up between investors and upgraders.  
A third of all new loans are with loan to value ratios of more than 80%, and 40% are on interest only terms.  Clearly investors are speculating on a continued pattern of price gains from an already high plateau – an ambitious projection.  
Under the existing financial system, inevitably, it’s none other than rising debt that fuels accelerated growth.  However, <a target="_blank" href="#https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/09/charting-the-australian-first-home-buyer-retreat/">since March 2009</a>, whilst the average first homebuyer mortgage has increased by only 1.4%, the mortgage for the market as a whole has grown by 7.9%.  
Meanwhile, first home buyers have seen their savings eroded, and as the latest ABS housing finance data outlines, wishful thinking that rising yields are pushing greater numbers into the market, has had scant effect.  
According to research by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ratecity.com.au/">Rate City</a>, “first home buyers now account for just 11% of home loan commitments. This is below the 20 year average of 15% and has not been this low since 2004.” And whilst interest rates on their own can have little impact on price rises or falls in the near term – a long period of low rates and the dependency it invokes, can be dangerous in inelastic areas of limited supply.  
Current competition coupled with pent up demand, has done little more than push values further out of reach of a genuine entry buyer demographic.  And as complex as it may be to slowly unpick the current distortions that tie up the established market and hamper construction, the implications of not doing so, are potentially worst over the longer term.  
No one should be fooled by the rhetoric from various industry commentators concluding current inflationary gains are of no concern. Hence why we are seeing a conundrum in central banks across the globe employing "precautionary policy activism” in an attempt to cool asset inflation without hampering the broader economy by raising rates.  
<a target="_blank" href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/news/new-zealand-rba-announces-restrictions-on-mortgage-lending-for-borrowers-with-less-than-a-20-deposit/2013082064388">In New Zealand in particular it’s a point of concern</a> and not just a localised issue. House prices currently sit at record highs, with the government property valuer ‘QV’ residential index showing gains of 8.5% in the 12-month period ending August 30.  
As reporter for real estate news on Sky Business 602, Iggy Damiani pointed out to me last week that Australian banks' ownership of New Zealand’s 'big four', place them in a precarious position - currently having the highest exposure to residential mortgages in the world. Therefore asset gains, which outpace both wage growth and inflation, must be addressed.  
Even assuming low rates are assisting first home buyers, saving a deposit and sourcing a suitably affordable property is no easy task for a demographic who are often burdened with a hangover of student debt, and, in many cases, can’t conceivably buy in until they partner with a second income earner.  
With this in mind, it must be pondered what the effect will be when rates do inevitably rise, considering our household debt to income ratio remains stubbornly high, at around 148%.  
Property to some extent connects together like a flowchart. Supply is fed in from the bottom to allow those upgrading (and then downsizing) a ready market to sell into in order to make the move.  
However, when investors predominantly negatively gear into the asset class most favoured by first home buyers – inevitably resulting in inflated established property values – and the state government fails to come to the party with feasible affordable alternatives, our property wheel of upgrading and downsizing risks stagnation.  
In the near term, heated investor activity may keep everyone dancing, however over the longer term we’re losing a valuable demographic of property buyer, which will no doubt have a flow-on effect across the property chain as a whole.  
As these changes push through the generation gap, it’s fair to assess, increasing numbers will retire whist still factoring as short-term renters.  
Investors tend to hold property for extended periods of time in order to build equity – many choose to invest as part of their self-managed super funds and subsequently do not sell until retirement. Therefore the ready supply, which usually comes from initial homebuyers selling and upgrading, will start to slow.  
 
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Additionally, we have the first world problem of an aging population creating future headwinds across the economy, with <a target="_blank" href="https://archive.treasury.gov.au/igr/igr2010/report/pdf/IGR_2010.pdf">government intergenerational reports</a> forecasting the already reducing workforce participation rate, to drop to around 60% by 2050.  
Considering the predominant home buying activity takes place within the ages of 22-44, it seems reasonable to assume that there’ll eventually be proportionally greater demand from those downsizing as we progress through these buyer type changes.  
However, if the flow-on home buyer effect doesn’t follow through, the mismatch of household size comparable to property type will continue to stagnate our property buying and selling terrain, further tying down supply in the areas most want and need to reside – areas within easy commutable distance to city suburbs, jobs and essential amenities such as schools, hospitals, doctors, public transport systems and so forth.  
Therefore, the last thing we should be doing, is advocating the spruik that rising property prices are somehow good for the economy having a supposed flow on effect into retail spending, which in itself is currently not producing the desired result.  First home buyers may head out to purchase white goods and furniture for their new abode, but our investment sector certainly won’t.  
Additionally, choices are limited in a market that has been turned into a speculative terrain.  
If we were building homes that were viable for first home buyers to gain a foothold which would not only maintain consistent market demand in order to upgrade, but also provide feasible accommodation for this demographic to settle for an adequate period of time, then having an investor-dominated inner-city terrain could perhaps be balanced somewhat so as not to affect the stagnated flow of the home buyer chain.  
However, the new home options are either limited to outer-suburban estates lacking in infrastructure, which is an essential component needed at the start of each project if we’re to lure home buyers outwards, or alternatively, inner-city high-density low grade developments.  
Our census data already demonstrates that most lone person households are tottering around in accommodation that’s far too big for their requirements. Building an abundance of one-bedroom apartments therefore won’t suffice; only 14% of the total single person households of all ages opt for one-bedroom units.  We instead need a wider diversity of options, in particular, accommodation suited to families - with the decrease of ownership for this demographic showing a fall from 79.5% in 2006 to 77.2% in 2011.  
<a target="_blank" href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/residential/why-investor-activity-is-causing-our-property-markets-to-stagnate-catherine-cashmore/2013021759370">As I’ve mentioned previously</a>, the percentage of investor-owned apartments in both Darwin and Brisbane falls close to 70% – and in the other capitals, it comes in between 60 and 70%.  
And whilst this generation of existing investors may continue to enjoy short-term speculative gains of the oft quoted property cycle, since when did the future of the first home buyer market become ours to erode?  
I’ve assisted numerous first home buyers and renters over the past few years, and it’s no exaggeration many perceive the capital price of property and the risks associated with taking on a greater proportion of debt a potential liability. For those who argue based on textbook analysis that property is not over priced, I suggest they change their frame of reference. There may be historical logic behind the long-term growth in values, but this doesn’t change the consequence; it is both over priced and under supplied.  
Therefore, pressure on the rental market is unlikely to ease in the near to far future, with ABS data showing almost two-thirds of new residents from overseas are long-term property renters along with half new residents from within Australia who also class themselves within the same bracket.  
Furthermore, economic conditions such as wage growth, unemployment, consumer confidence and frequent changes of work placements all reduce the likelihood of a strengthening owner-occupier market over the next decade.  
Current policy is built around the general assumption that renting is a step on the road to ownership. However, unless the trend takes an about turn, tomorrow’s generation will hold a growing percentage of residents for which renting is for life, and as such, we also need to consider their welfare.  
Policy should be steered towards the creation of a fairer partnership between owner and renter.  This would include longer terms of tenancy, protection from exorbitant rent rises coupled with enforcement of basic standards of accommodation in both the private and public sector.  
As it stands, in the rental market, and the property buying/selling market short termism dominates.  No surprise, as we’re governed by those who derive personal and political benefit from the existing system, polling for the popular vote from home owners and investors; pinned to our flawed debt based financial system that relies on an ever inflating future to under-pin existing gains.  
 
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 Catherine Cashmore is a market analyst with extensive experience in all aspects relating to property acquisition.
 
     
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The future of the first home buyer should not be ours to erode: Catherine Cashmore

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"The home, built in 1857, had been unoccupied for years," said the report of a dilapidated Victorian-era mansion in Sydney's Balmain East.
Situated in an exclusive residential pocket next door to the Balmain East ferry wharf, and sporting bayside views of Sydney's Harbour Bridge, the 457 square metre block of land attracted 200 people to the auction, 18 registrations to bid, and sold $830,000 above the reserve to a local home buyer <a href="https://www.rebonline.com.au/breaking-news/8169-decrepit-house-fetches-millions-at-auction" target="_blank">for $2.68 million</a>.
According to <a href="/expert-insights/buying/uninhabitable-crumbling-1850s-balmain-east-cottage-secures-2-68-million-price">Property Observer,</a> the site had been acquired in 1973 for $33,500 by the notable gay rights activist and historian, Alexander 'Lex' Watson. Watson was the president of The Pride History Group and a lecturer in Australian Politics at Sydney University who sadly passed away earlier this year after a long battle with cancer.
$33,500 in 1973 dollars would be $289,724 in real terms today – just over 10% of today's $2.68 million selling price.
The location was the key of course, with planned upgrades to the Balmain East ferry wharf, which will now receive services from the Parramatta River along with extra ferries to McMahons and Milsons Point, further enhancing its value.
Had the home been only a few kilometres away, a few hundred thousand could have been wiped off the price tag and the media sensation may not have been so great. Even so, it is not the only dilapidated property to make the press of late.
Opportunistic buyers caught up in Sydney and Melbourne's property boom have snapped up a string of empty homes, selling under stiff competition while exceeding all expectations of price.
An empty hat factory on Wilson Street, Newtown, also vacant for years, sold earlier this month for $1.725 million.
A dilapidated home on 360 square metres of land in Thornley St, Leichhardt, vacant for more than 30 years, sold a few weeks ago for $1.4 million at auction.
A home in total disrepair at 19 Durham St, Stanmore, situated on 172 square metres of land, vacant for years and sold for $923,000.
And not to leave Melbourne out, an unliveable Richmond property on 726 square metres of land, also vacant for years, <a href="/expert-insights/buying/derelict-richmond-cottage-development-site-sold-at-2-544-000">sold for $2.544 million</a> – $900,000 above the price it achieved only two years ago (pictured above).
The <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/leichhardt-property-pulls-in-14-million-at-auction-and-tops-big-money-dump-list/story-fnd91nhy-1227006222322" target="_blank">list goes on</a>.
Barring the last example, that came with plans and permits for two town houses, these properties transacted for nothing more than their land value. However, while the buyers purchased a location, they did not pay for the services that rendered that location valuable or, in the case of the first example, compensate the local residents for suppressing access to some of the best views in town.
Instead, reinforced by inelastic zoning constraints, generous tax treatment, and unrestrained speculative growth in dwelling finance commitments, they unwittingly rewarded the sellers with a substantial unearned gain for withholding valuable land from use and depleting the nation's housing supply.
This means of 'creating wealth' common in most western nations sits at the root of many of our economic and social problems today. It has both a debilitating and destabilising effect on the economy, evidenced clearly in a painful and rising trend income and housing inequality that burdens the capacity of the 'welfare state' to compensate.
This article continues on the next page. Please click below.
 
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Interestingly, Lex Watson, the prior owner of the Balmain East property cited above, was purportedly greatly influenced by the writings of John Stewart Mill whose work was said to be "the touchstone of his life and later activism".
Born in London in 1806, John Stewart Mill is remembered as "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century".
Inspired by his father James Mill, who tutored his nine children with daily lessons in Latin, Greek, French, history, philosophy, and politics, John Stewart Mill was a leading economist. He was a prolific logician, who dedicated his life to championing the causes of liberty and equality, while advocating 'radical' ideas, such as the abolishment of slavery and equal rights for women.
In 1848 he published the most prominent textbook on economics in the 19th century, Principles of Political Economy, critiquing systems such as communism and socialism and cementing Mill's reputation as a leading public intellectual.
Extending on the ideas set out by Adam Smith and David Ricardo, Mill employed concepts that that have been written out of today's economic narrative, that conflate land and capital – virtual opposites – while failing to distinguish between income that is 'earned' and the economic surplus that disproportionately flows to those that "love to reap where they never sowed" (a process best set out in Mason Gaffney's book The Corruption of Economics).
Writing on the moralities of taxation in Book V, Chapter II of Principles of a Political Economy Mill commented:
"The ordinary progress of a society, which increases in wealth, is at all times tending to augment the incomes of landlords; to give them both a greater amount and a greater proportion of the wealth of the community, independently of any trouble or outlay incurred by themselves. They grow richer, as it were in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing."
From this Mill concluded that the government should collect society's economic rents in lieu of taxes that impede productive labour and industry, including taxes on the improvement and the transfer of property, (stamp duty) which he said, should rather be: "distributed over the land generally, in the form of a land-tax."
He was not the first or last to do so.
He followed a long line of influential activists, from Thomas Paine, who in his 1797 publication Agrarian Justice stressed:
"Men did not make the earth... It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land, which he holds."
Most recently, Dr Ken Henry, who chaired Australia's Future Tax System Review, noted: "... economic growth would be higher if governments raised more revenue from land and less revenue from other tax bases."
The classical economists recognised that unless profits from the 'enclosure of the commons' – land, water rights, minerals, and so forth - were effectively collected and shared for the benefit of the community, all productive gains, every improvement in society and the economy, would be capitalised into rising locational land values, enriching those that owned the assets but more so, those who created the credit and traded on the debt.
This is equally applicable to reductions in the cost of construction.
For example, news that high-density apartment towers close to public transport in Sydney, will no longer require parking facilities, delivering an estimated saving of $50,000 - $70,000 in development costs, will do little to ease affordability.
Rather, it will simply leave more funds available to bid up the price of land. This is precisely what we are seeing in Australia – sky rocketing land prices requiring 'super tall' structures to provide a viable return on investment.
This article continues on the next page. Please click below.
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While the small one and two bedroom units may be spruiked as affordable, when calculated by cost or rental value per square metre of floor space, they are remarkably expensive.
Mason Gaffney expanded on the theory, coining the acronym ATCOR – "All Taxes Come Out of Rent." Showing that whether renting or buying, total tax liabilities from whatever area carried by the consumer, deduct from the cost of a site to the extent they limit the amount a buyer is both prepared and able to pay.
It follows that the removal of all taxes would naturally wash up into higher prices for real estate, which in theory leaves the resulting rise in the economic rent of land 'just' enough to replace the forgone revenue. (For more, see Fitzgerald's Resource Rents Of Australia).
When that liability falls on productive industry, deadweight losses occur. For example, 90% of our taxes are distortionary, adding 23% to prices of goods and services.
However, when the burden falls on land and monopoly rents – minerals, fuels, the broadcasting and communications spectrum, patents et cetera, the reverse is the case.
In respect of land, a higher tax rate levied on the unimproved value would discourage leaving dilapidated homes vacant for years while we struggle with an assumed housing shortage - suppressing the speculative element that adds to the volatility of the market cycle.
Furthermore, when the gain is collected and used to fund the expansion of infrastructure in order to service a growing population, the tax base is expanded without a subsequent lift in rates.
In the 19th century, nature's 'free lunch' was largely limited to the aristocracy of the great landed estates. Today, monopoly profits are absorbed by the financial sector, which wields significant political leverage from lending 'endogenously' created credit against real estate collateral, with the compounding interest disproportionately increasing levels of household debt.
As I pointed out previously - Australia will increasingly feel the effect of this as we move into 2019.
Our current tax system is crooked. It allows large companies to jump through loop holes in legislation and 'cook the books,' shipping profits offshore, leading to an estimated $1.6 billion in tax revenue forgone, while land on the other hand, is used by investors as an effective tax haven.
This article continues on the next page. Please click below.
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In a recent post by Dr Gavin R. Putland of the Land Values Research Group, he notes:
"No matter how high your gross income may be, you can make your taxable income as low as you like, simply by buying enough negatively-geared properties. Such artificially reduced taxable incomes are used in ATO statistics on negative gearing, which are then trotted out by the property lobby as "proof" that most negative gearers aren't rich — as exposed, for example, in Michael Janda's article <a href="The%20myth%20of%20'mum%20and%20dad'%20property%20investors" target="_blank">The myth of 'mum and dad' property investors</a> (The Drum, 24 September 2014)."
Australia's economic narrative is more concerned with suppressing wages than high land values.
Joe Hockey has unashamedly stated that any rise to the minimum wage "will cost jobs" and "reduce competition," while remaining notably silent on the average CEO pay, which sits at an estimated 63 times average earnings (as at 2013), and showing scant regard for rising land values which increase the associated costs of running a business, while discouraging growth in productive industry.
It uncovers a damaging neo-liberal agenda, which will do nothing to raise the living standards for Australians struggling to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, in Germany, the house price-to-income ratio has fallen by almost a third nationally since the early 1990s, yet residents enjoy low unemployment and some of the highest wages per capita in the world – including the highest minimum wage in the world. Germany weathered the 2008 depression better than any other country in Europe by maintaining its focus on value adding growth.
The public needs to recapture the debate and push for a better set of democratic tools, that let the people decide directly on the benefits that can aid their communities, rather than the current state of affairs which is coloured with vested interest, polarising voters with false promises and flawed economic thinking.
The rise of citizen's juries, where a diverse and representative group of people are randomly selected and given the information and training needed to deliberate together on matters of policy – for the benefit of all, not just a few - limiting the power of corrupt government officials, may take us one step closer to achieving this.
Top of the agenda should be every citizen's right to affordable access to land and shelter.
 
 
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Australia's empty homes

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The latest affordability index by the Adelaide Bank and Real Estate Institute of Australia has once again flooded the real estate headlines with the jolly news that housing is growing ever more affordable.  
This pre Christmas gift of optimism from the newly updated affordability studies commissioned by the financial and real estate sectors, comes with a host of commentary – usually from those with a vested interest – who happily advise aspiring home owners that ‘they’ve never had it so good’ – in other words, to paraphrase Terry Ryder’s thoughts, first home buyers should <a href="/property-observer" target="_blank">‘put up, or shut up.’</a>  
Of course, it wouldn’t be half as palatable if it didn’t come accompanied with the seeming contradiction that not only is it more affordable than it’s been in the last decade (according to the HIA-Commonwealth Bank affordability index), it’s also substantially more expensive than its ever been. Yes, housing is only item than can be both affordable and unaffordable at the same time.  Work that one out Einstein.  
In fact, according to <a href="#more-3603" target="_blank">Residex</a>, median prices in both Sydney and Melbourne have already exceeded their historical highs, ‘nudging’ $750,000 in Sydney and $600,000 in Melbourne - additionally, Perth has also reached its previous peak of 2008, with a median price of $521,000.  
<a href="https://www.rpdata.com/" target="_blank">RP Data’s</a> dwelling price index shows a year to date increase of 14.3% in Sydney, 6.4% in Melbourne and 9.7% in Perth.  For home buyers, the benefit derived from lower lending rates has been all but offset by the inflationary pressure placed on prices.  
Rarely is it mentioned that housing affordability and the cost of servicing a mortgage are two separate entities.  
Mortgage rates are set up with different structures dependant on circumstance, and subject to interest rate changes influenced by the macro environment.  
To take out a 25 year mortgage requires the expectation of secure employment in a terrain where frequent job changes or part time work are becoming a norm.  
They may influence house prices through a cycle, but they do not take away the fact that home prices now – even with lower lending rates – require longer terms to pay down, with the interest over the duration of that period adding considerably to the capital cost.  
In fact I couldn’t put it any better than current governor of the Bank of England - <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/29/mark-carney-bank-of-england-home-buyer-warning" target="_blank">Mark Carney</a>, when he warns;  
“Think about the mortgage you are taking on, the debts you are taking on…You are taking at least a 25-year mortgage, maybe a 30-year mortgage.  Are you going to be able to service that mortgage five years from now, 10 years from now, if interest rates are higher? Or are you counting, even subconsciously, on the price of your house keeping going up and if something happens an ability to sell it quickly and not facing the consequences of not being able to pay?"
Carney’s cautionary words pre-empt the Bank of England’s decision to scale back its inflationary Funding for Lending Scheme amidst fears of a rapid escalation of house prices in the south-eastern regions of the country.  
From next year funding for lending will only be available for business loans -not mortgages – and if the banking sector’s concerned about signs of frothiness in an industry in which it’s heavily invested, so should we also be.  
The Bank of England governor is not alone. Central banks in Sweden, Hong Kong, Norway, New Zealand, Canada and Switzerland (to name but a few) have all adopted macro prudential measures to buffer against the associated risks of a boom/bust investor lead recovery in a post GFC environment - highlighting the importance of keeping lending standards robust – all, that is,  except Australia.  
Having weathered the impact of the GFC a little more effectively than others – the RBA seem to think we live in some magic faraway tree, effectively doing little more than wagging a cautionary finger to a sector which for the duration of the year, have outstripped owner-occupier lending with well over a third of all new loans on interest only terms and roughly the same proportion with LVRs of over 8%.  
In other words, there are still over a third of all loans in which the principle is not being reduced – with 37.3% lent on these terms for the September quarter alone.  
In NSW, investment lending is at record highs, making up over 50% of the market and although many use the well worn argument that the unwanted boom is predominant ‘only in Sydney’ – let’s not forget, Sydney is not some nether land off the coast of Tasmania. What happens in our biggest capital, with the largest and most diverse economy in Australia, inevitably impacts us all.  
Historically, this sector is more sensitive to interest rate changes with a tendency to wax and wain pro cyclically with market movements, exaggerating both gains and falls.  A housing recovery built on the back of small mum and dad investors pouring their money predominantly into negatively geared established dwellings – especially considering our current levels of private debt to income ratios - is not ideal for the long term the stability of our housing market, or house prices.  
The common Aussie term ‘spruiking’ - which APRA warns against in the self-managed super sector, is not only a contributing aspect of what inspires our culture to see property as the undiversified road map for building wealth for retirement – it is also part and parcel of what has kept our property prices high by both local and international standards.  Yet the risks associated with spruiking in SMSFs is simply the tip of a much larger iceberg.  
Having worked in many aspects of the housing industry, I have seen first hand the type of material that’s presented at seminars not just from those who receive under the table commissions from developers, but also from advocates working as independent advisors for either the seller or buyer.  
It really isn’t unusual to see slides presented at seminars with straight lines charting the difference between investing in properties that supposedly “grow” at steady 5% per annum, compared to those that grow at 10%, using historical median data as ‘evidence’ that future returns can replicate those achieved in the past, without any distinction of how such data is correlated or the difference between individual “house prices” and “median values.”  
This information borders on financial advice and comes with no mention of risk or the type of rigorous analysis, which you would reasonably expect when choosing to invest in a single asset.  
Another widely used industry favourite is the statement;  
“FACT: fewer than 5% of properties are investment grade”  
A myth if ever there was one.  Perhaps the well-known companies that use this as an advertising tool, would like to point to the person who researched every property in Australia to correlate such a statistic? Maybe we could also ask for a comprehensive definition of what ‘investment grade’ really is – because I guarantee there would be no shortage of differing opinions from industry ‘experts.’  
This endless promotion of residential property, with rows of investment magazines lining newsagency shelves, promoting subjective ‘hotspots,’ or as I <a href="https://catherinecashmore.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/do-we-have-a-changing-landscape-concerning-australian-real-estate-and-property-prices/" target="_blank">pointed out</a> a few weeks ago, agencies cold calling households, and sending ‘advisors’ round to ‘educate’ and encourage inexperienced investors to negatively gear against their principle place of residence, is toxic.  
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Meanwhile, the RBA continue to sit on their hands, not wanting to pull a regulatory lever, instead <a href="https://www.afr.com/rw/2009-2014/AFR/2013/09/25/Photos/160229d4-2585-11e3-bbca-a7ec88bfff7c_FSR.pdf" target="_blank">warning</a> investors to employ caution, hoping they will fall into line like a bunch of good school kids. However, whilst macro prudential tools may assist in ensuring banking lending standards remain robust – can they have any long-term sustainable or lasting impact on property prices?  
In a recent research paper by BIS (Bank for International Settlements), entitled <a href="https://www.bis.org/publ/work433.pdf" target="_blank">“Can non-interest rate policies stabilise housing markets?”</a>, evidence was gathered from 57 countries spanning more than three decades, investigating the effectiveness of nine non-interest rate policy and macro prudential tools on restraining credit growth and house prices.  
The analysis used a new dataset going as far back as 1980, making it the most comprehensive study to date in terms of both scope and time span.  
The paper concluded that whilst reductions in the maximum LTV (loan to value) ratio can restrain demand, its effects can be partially or wholly offset by a rising market enabling the investor to borrow more, therefore, changes in the maximum DSTI (debt service to income) ratio were assessed to be more substantial.  
But importantly;  
“Only tax changes affecting the cost of buying a house, which bear directly on the user cost, have any measurable effect on prices” and,  
“None of the policies designed to affect either the supply of or the demand for credit has a discernible impact on house prices.”
The study puts this down to the ‘can buys’ still outnumbering the growing pool of credit constrained ‘can’t buys’ – stressing that the importance of housing supply was not explicitly considered. Therefore if we want to lower house prices or put in place policies to aid affordability, we need to look outside the limited powers of the RBA alone.  
As has been proven <a href="https://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/1/21/national-affairs/built-backs-first-home-buyers" target="_blank">time and time again</a>, intermittently stoking at the bottom end of the market with FHB grants and incentives does little more than provide a short term happy pill for vendors, as the price multiplier effect ripples across the rest of the housing terrain, stimulating both an inflationary and volatile environment.  
Instead, we need to focus on the real problem in Australia – and it’s not property prices, it’s land prices - as economist <a href="https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/11/residential-land-values-reflate-across-australia/" target="_blank">Leith Van Onselen effectively points out</a> when he analyses the difference between commercial and rural land compared to residential land values, and building costs.  
“Whilst commercial and rural prices have remained relatively stable over the last 24 years relative to GDP, residential prices have skyrocketed.”  
In other words, the cost of residential fringe land, which without constraint, should be close to its ‘raw’ value, is not cheap at all – and it’s all down to ineffective urban planning policy.  
As I (<a href="https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/12/englobo-the-shady-world-of-land-banking/" target="_blank">and others</a>) have pointed out previously, even within a wide expansive boundary as mooted in Melbourne’s new urban growth strategy, the government limits land use until they have gone through a lengthy process of mapping out areas for infrastructure known as a ‘<a href="https://www.gaa.vic.gov.au/precinct-structure-plans/" target="_blank">Precinct Structure Plan’</a> (PSP) – it is a slow laborious process and as soon as you restrict the supply of anything, scarcity inevitably inflates values.  
Larger developers are not slow to purchase swathes of acreage prior to rezoning, and then once PSPs have been finalised, drip feed it onto the market. Not only do government bodies have little understanding of how released plots respond to consumer demand, they have no policy in place to deter the practice. It’s therefore a failure.  
Furthermore, facilitation of infrastructure is currently financed via hefty development overlays, which are passed onto the buyer rather than initiatives such as bond financing, where residents pay back proportionally over a lengthy period of time, as was the case historically.  
We must remove these barriers with effective policy and let land prices revert back to normal levels to reflect a real price closer to commercial values.  
Without doing so, we can’t gain a true indicator of the trade-off buyers are prepared to make between price and distance. Currently, the average price of a newly built house and land package is around $400,000, this is not serviceable on the single median wage, and therefore can hardly be deemed affordable.  
Get the land supply, price, and infrastructure equation right and I suspect there would be no lack of demand from genuine aspiring home buyers.  Only when this is done, can we have a truly transparent debate on first home buyers’ willingness to spread over the land.  
 
<hr>
 Catherine Cashmore is a market analyst with extensive experience in all aspects relating to property acquisition.
 
 
 
 
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Can housing really be affordable and unaffordable at the same time?

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Of all the policies employed by the government to exacerbate Australia’s housing affordability crisis, our inequitable tax system, which includes negative gearing, is top of the list.
Negative gearing has reduced Australia’s housing supply. Over 92% of investors chase the capital gains associated with second hand dwellings rather than increase the stock of housing through investment into new supply. We replace properties for sale, with properties for rent.
<img src="/images/2014/11/20/cashmore-nov-20-one.jpg" alt="">
Negative gearing has pushed up the price of housing and widened the gap between price and yield. High and rising house prices naturally put upward pressure on rents and assist in keeping first homebuyers locked out the market.
<img src="/images/2014/11/20/cashmore-nov-20-two.jpg" alt="">
Negative gearing has turned us into a nation of speculators. Today, the investor share of the market is close to 50%. Investor finance commitments are rising at their fastest pace since 2007. 65% of loans to investors are on interest only terms and an estimated 95% of all bank lending is being channeled into real estate – mostly residential. Negative gearing costs the government billions in lost tax revenue each year. Around 1.25 million taxpayers (approximately 13% of the total) now have at least one negatively geared property. <img src="/images/2014/11/20/cashmore-nov-20-three.jpg" width="676" height="440"> Negative gearing employs one rule for the landowner and another rule for the worker. Investors that negatively gear can deduct non-work-related property losses against wages and salaries.They can lower their taxable income as much as they wish by simply by buying enough negatively geared dwellings. The wage earner has no such advantage – why work when you can speculate? Negative gearing favours the wealthy rewarding high-income earners handsomely. Notwithstanding, the property lobby use artificially reduced taxable incomes to falsely claim that most investors are “<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-24/janda-the-myth-of-mum-and-dad-negative-gearers/5766724">mum and dad</a>” average income earners.
Negative gearing merely scratches the surface of Australia’s inequitable tax system. 
Investor tax incentives and their effect on house and land values have been repeatedly clarified by independent tax reviews, as well as previous Senate Inquiries into housing affordability.
The first inquiry conducted by the Productivity Commission in 2004, determined that prices had surpassed levels explicable by demographic factors and supply constraints alone. They stressed that a large surge in demand had rather been “predicated on unrealistic expectations (in a 'supportive' tax environment) of on going capital gains”.
The second inquiry overseen by a Select Senate Committee in 2008, found that the average house price in capital cities had climbed to over seven years of average earnings and once again, they identified inequitable disparities in the overall fairness of the tax system, that had lead to “speculative investment on second and third properties.”
Australia's Future Tax System review conducted in May 2010 stated that tax benefits and exemptions had been capitalised into higher land values, encouraging investors to chase ‘large’ capital gains over rental income and landowners to withhold supply.
The Future Tax System review recommended allowing only 40% of interest (and other expenses) associated with investments as a deduction.
This would reduce the amount investors are able to claim against negatively geared dwellings and provide a good starting point for phasing out the policy altogether.
Negative gearing as well as stamp duties (which are a volatile source of revenue, dependent on the volume of housing transfers in addition to the transacted price), should be replaced by a broad-based SLT (state land tax) – as I recommended <a href="https://catherinecashmore.com.au/wp/?p=414" target="_blank">here</a>.
Under this scenario, the upfront cost of land would fall, the higher tax base would blunt potential capital gains from speculation, and housing supply would naturally increase as land would need to generate an income.
An enhanced land tax would also provide a steady source of revenue for state government giving them greater control over public finances for the provision of essential infrastructure.
Moreover, study after study demonstrates, that basing a system on the collection of resource rents and monopoly profits, for the direct application of facilitating local and community services, can reduce the tax liability on most households whilst also maintaining complete revenue neutrality.
Unfortunately, 95% of our federal MPs own investment properties. Collectively, the are in possession of an estimated <a href="https://blog.australiaboomtobust.com/2014/08/propertied-federal-political-class/" target="_blank">$300 million</a> personal portfolio of residential dwellings. 
It is therefore unsurprising that all recommendations from previous Senate inquiries for meaningful and equitable tax reform have been studiously ignored.
This is an extract from Property Observer's exclusive article where the experts were asked: <a href="/expert-insights/investing/exclusive-negative-gearing-what-needs-to-change">Negative gearing – what needs to change?</a>.
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Negative gearing merely scratches the surface of Australia’s inequitable tax system

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Australia’s low-income residents are expected to take on a colossal amount of private debt just to put a roof overhead in our rentier economy, and the only explanation they are being offered is that Australia is suffering from a ‘housing shortage’.
Speaking at the 2014 <a href="https://topics.bloomberg.com/bloomberg-australia-economic-summit/">Bloomberg Economic Summit in Sydney</a>, where the investor share of the market is close to 50% and finance commitments have sky rocketed some 44% higher than July 2013. Treasurer Joe Hockey, denied that prices were ‘credit fuelled’ because: "Fundamentally we don’t have enough supply to meet demand (and) that doesn’t suggest a bubble.”
<img src="/images/2014/09/22/cashmore%20sept%2022%20one.jpg" alt="">
His views were supported by David Cannington, senior property analyst at Australia &amp; New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ), who referenced an apparent shortage of ‘300,000 homes’, while at the same time welcoming an elevated level of foreign speculation “as adding about $4.5 billion every quarter to total dwelling construction”.
The shortage Cannington refers to, is derived in part from research put together by the National Housing Supply Council (NHSC) established in May of 2008, just prior to the last Senate inquiry into housing affordability, yet promptly disbanded by the incoming Abbot government who are now only too willing to use its findings to support their populist view.
Using ABS data, the NHSC assessed what is known as ‘underlying demand’ - the amount of extra housing needed per annum over the last decade for all residents in Australia (not just active buyers) - ‘if’ we had continued to produce enough homes for an increasing population based on existing household composition figures.
The supply side findings of the report were hotly debated and justifiably so.
Planning for population growth is not an easy task, it is predictive in nature and makes many assumptions and revisions along the way.
However, this was not the NHSC’s only role.
It was also commissioned to produce a comprehensive evaluation of Australia’s affordability problems, which included the status of those impacted most – homeless, renters, first home buyers, low wage families and tenants in the public and social housing system, which helped clarify its findings.
For example, the reports showed utility costs such as electricity, gas, water, and sewerage, have been increasing at more than 10% per annum – yet they are not typically calculated as part of current analysis of housing affordability constraints.
They gave a good statistical overview to show a dramatic shortfall of affordable rental accommodation for low-income families. And clear evidence that our housing crisis is not that we do not produce enough homes ‘per se’ – but that we do not produce enough affordable and feasible options across the sector as a whole – in both the public and private sphere.
For example - the report noted a “shortage of housing for lower-income people  (specifically families) that results from a mismatch of housing prices relative to income”.
It made a point of stressing that Australia’s supply challenges cannot be met by ‘simply adding to the housing stock’. And further elaborated on the inability of apartment construction to meet both need and price for the majority of family residents - the value of the land and associated costs being too high, and the size of apartments being too small to adequately fulfil the task.
This places Cannington’s second comment – regarding the level of foreign investment pushing an unprecedented inner city boom in apartment construction, into context.
For individual renters, students and a small percentage of couples living downtown, the increase in high-density accommodation will assist in placing downward pressure on rents.
It cannot however assist in addressing Australia’s real housing shortage or accommodating the growing number of family and low-to-middle income residents, that want to buy – not just rent - and in the face of declining wages, find it increasingly difficult to do so.
This is not because we have booming population growth and a shortage of roof space, as our ministers are fond of sermonizing. But because our tax policies work directly against it, subverting supply side policy and negatively affecting wage growth by pushing up the price of land and the associated costs of doing business.
They encourage a system of false scarcity, in which land and dilapidated housing is hoarded and not effectively utilised, forcing a process of social polarisation, as low income residents are forced to ‘hop’ both the middle and outer rings, in search of cheaper options further afield.
They distort the use of the nation’s savings, encouraging speculation on rising land values.  This negatively affects the financing of new supply, as investors chase the capital gains associated with established stock, over and above rental income.
<img src="/images/2014/09/22/cashmore%20sept%2022%20two.jpg" alt="">
The behavioural impacts are profound, amplifying the boom and bust swings of the market cycle.
The financial sector accommodates, with property prices dependent on how much ‘endogenously’ created credit a bank chooses lend, subject once again, to our dysfunctional tax system.
Negative gearing, depreciation and lower land taxes, leave more economic rent available to be pledged to the banks in the form of higher prices, producing a rentier economy which prioritises ‘creating wealth’ through asset inflation and rising levels of private debt - rather than improving living standards by supporting tangible investment into value adding activities.
<img src="/images/2014/09/22/cashmore%20sept%2022%20three.jpg" alt="">
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The distortion that inflated values have on the economy acts to subvert housing policy as any danger of a marked decline in prices, places an associated risk on financial stability.
Affluent neighbourhoods are therefore protected from ‘over development’, while inelastic responses to market conditions, allow professional land-bankers to squat on sites at low cost and secure windfall gains when they are later rezoned for residential development.
Stamp duty further restricts labour mobility and the regular turnover of housing stock.
The resulting effect is illustrated on the <a href="https://www.natsem.canberra.edu.au/publications/?publication=the-great-australian-dream-just-a-dream">maps below</a> that show where affordable options were located in 2001 for low-to-middle income buyers, compared to 2011, in all of our major capitals.  
The yellow patches being affordable, and blue patches unaffordable.
<img src="/images/2014/09/22/cashmore%20sept%2022%20four.jpg" alt="">
<img src="/images/2014/09/22/cashmore%20sept%2022%20five.png" alt="">
<img src="/images/2014/09/22/cashmore%20sept%2022%20six.png" alt="">
<img src="/images/2014/09/22/cashmore%20sept%2022%20seven.png" alt="">
<img src="/images/2014/09/22/cashmore%20sept%2022%20eight.png" alt="">
Source: <a href="https://www.natsem.canberra.edu.au/publications/?publication=the-great-australian-dream-just-a-dream">NATSEM</a> Income and Wealth Report Issue 29 - The Great Australian Dream - Just a Dream?
Prior to the 1970s, infrastructure financing was funded in part through the capture of economic rent from the land that directly benefited from the accompanying improvements. 
Now, infrastructure costs are financed through deadweight taxes on productivity from residents who derive no benefit in their own local neighbourhood, or loaded onto the upfront cost of new dwellings and promptly passed to the buyer.
The banking lobby loves minsters like Joe Hockey that offer no threat to their profits and instead, waft away any necessary concern over rising prices with simplified responses that fail to identify the root cause. 
It has driven up the cost of housing – damaging the potential of future generations, with a lifetime worth of debt sold as “forced savings”, while the interest is re-packaged an into an array of obscure financial instruments, allowing the country’s wealth to gravitate into an elite nuclei of financially strong hands.
Notwithstanding, all the above points were highlighted in the last <a href="https://www.propertyoz.com.au/library/A%20good%20house%20is%20hard%20to%20find%20report%20JUNE%202008.pdf" target="_blank">Senate inquiry</a> into housing affordability, as well as being set out clearly in the <a href="https://taxreview.treasury.gov.au/Content/Content.aspx?doc=html/home.htm" target="_blank">Henry Tax review</a>.  Yet studiously ignored in a budget that surgically set about reducing the living standards of Australia’s low to middle-income earners, the most productive sectors of our economy, rather than collecting the tax revenues from resource rents and monopoly profits.
Joe Hockey has reaped substantial unearned gains from an <a href="https://blog.australiaboomtobust.com/2014/08/propertied-federal-political-class/" target="_blank">impressive portfolio</a> of property investments - reportedly, picking up his Canberra home <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/taxpayers-footing-bill-on-treasurer-joe-hockeys-15-million-canberra-house/story-fni0cx12-1227026624945">“for a song”</a> in 1997 at $320,000, and watched that land value more than triple in nominal terms to an estimated  $1.5 million today.
In light of the above evidence, it can only be assumed that Hockey’s comments are based on a vested interest to protect his own back pocket and seat in power, rather than the urgent need to invest in Australia’s future by eliminating the losses inflicted by our current system of taxation that forces up the cost of land and associated levels of private debt.  
Instead we need to move toward a system that finances society’s needs and infrastructure requirements, from capturing the <a href="https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/11/land-tax-must-kill-negative-gearing-stamp-duty/" target="_blank">economic rents</a> currently capitalised into the price that buyers negotiate when they purchase a home, which would eventually act to improve the living standards of all, not just the privileged few.
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Supply v demand: A political game of smoke and mirrors

The story of skyscraper hubris – pride before a fall

"Our distrust is very expensive": We can't have a trustworthy financial market without an honest property system

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Nick Xenophon (along with other groups, such as the <a href="https://reia.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Super_Homes.pdf">REIA</a>), is advocating a policy that will be responsible for making housing affordability worse. 
He is using the Canadian "Home Buyer Plan" as an example to promote a similar idea in Australia. That is - allowing first home buyers to raid their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superannuation_in_Australia" target="_blank">superannuation</a> account – sold under the pretext of ‘helping them get onto the property ladder’. 
The theory goes that to progress up this mythological ladder, buyers must bet their income and in this case, future savings, on a speculative process that translates into higher house prices, without thought for the next generation of required ‘property ladder’ participants, who will no doubt fall dependant on similar schemes, to keep the tide rising.
The procedure in Canada allows eligible buyers to withdraw up to C$25,000 tax-free from their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_Retirement_Savings_Plan">retirement fund</a>, on the condition that they pay it back over a 15-year period.
If they fail to do this, the amount withdrawn will be taxed as per the income earner's tax bracket. Currently, 35% of Canadians fall into this category however, according to the <a href="https://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/menu-eng">CRA</a>, roughly one out of two – that is, 47% – contributed less than the required repayment amount over the 2011 tax year. 
These means, while the government picks up the added income revenue windfall, buyers, buoyed on by a rent seeking culture that fools the public into believing such policies are designed to be ‘helpful’, overstretch their budget and in weak economic conditions are left to carry the can.
In short - you borrow money from yourself at 0% interest and in doing so; lose 15 years of compounding 'tax free' interest with average returns in the order of 7%. 
It’s notable that many low to middle-income individuals have inadequate funds to draw upon, therefore even assuming the scheme were to be effective, it’s limited in the difference it can make.
But the real ‘nub’ of the issue, which Nick Xenophon has failed to acknowledge, is that the Canadian Home Buyer Plan was never intended to aid affordability. 
It was <a href="https://annualreport.crea.ca/2012/advocacy.php">promoted by the real estate industry</a> as a temporary measure, following the recession in the late 1980s, to stimulate land values and benefit the FIRE sector, along with it's economic offshoots - renovations, furniture, appliances, moving costs, tax revenue to government and so forth.
The FIRE sector has lobbied to keep in place ever since and also pushed for the threshold to be raised.
This is because most Western economies have constructed their tax and supply policies to reward real estate speculation over and above productive enterprise.
The process is assisted and abetted by a banking industry that seeks to lend against land as collateral, favouring the extraction of economic rent, over and above extending loans for the purpose of productive enterprise 
<img src="/images/2014/08/06/cashmore%20aug%206%20one.png" alt="">
Canadian residential real estate tripled from an estimated C$1.3 Trillion in 2000, to <a href="https://in.reuters.com/article/2014/06/19/canada-economy-debt-idINL2N0P00FG20140619" target="_blank">C$3.8 trillion in 2014</a>, however, only C$550 billion of this was for renovation projects or new home building - the rest was pure inflation.
By the end of 2011, the Home Buyer plan had been used <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/retirement-rrsps/why-the-home-buyers-plan-should-be-wound-down/article8211010/">2.6 million times</a>, with total withdrawals adding up to around $27.9-billion – that’s $27.9 billion of additional credit, feeding into existing house prices.
Between 2005 and 2011, Canadian house prices rose 58%, while average income for 25-34 year olds, increased by just 6%.
The <a href="https://www.rbc.com/economics/economic-reports/pdf/canadian-housing/house-november2013.pdf" target="_blank">Royal Bank of Canada</a> reports that detached housing now requires more than 80% of the median household income for mortgage payments in some of the country’s major cities.
Household debt to disposable income in Canada is currently 163.2%, up from 129% at the peak of the boom in 2006 and sitting only a few degrees lower than the recorded level in Australia. 
SIZE OF HOUSEHOLD DEBT COMPARED WITH ANNUAL INCOME in Australia, Canada, France and Italy. (ABS)   <img src="/images/2014/08/06/cashmore%20aug%206%20two.png" alt="">
Mainstream economists like to focus on government debt as a barometer of the heath of the economy. However, high and rising levels of private debt, as a consequence of such policies, <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.amazon.com/The-Next-Economic-Disaster-Coming/dp/0812247043">constrain demand</a> and eventually exceed the income and economic activity they helped create.
Nick Xenophon cites the <a href="https://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf" target="_blank">Demographica Housing Affordability Report</a> in his press release, however it’s clear he has not read it. 
If he had, he would know that like Australia, Canada's largest major markets are also rated as “severely unaffordable” – and by studying the ‘affordable markets’ such as <a href="https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/04/australian-property-through-foreign-eyes/">Texas</a>, or areas of <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2014/07/28/pittsburgh-recovers-from-recession-better-than">Pittsburgh</a> for example, Mr Xenophon would have a better understanding why these states avoided the harsh consequence of the GFC, and continue to generate healthy levels of economic growth. 
Significantly, both cities have land tax and liberal supply policies that deter speculation – helping to keep real estate affordable, while investment is channelled into other areas of the local economy.
While, Australia rewards speculation, allowing the geo-rent (the unearned gains) from rising land values to capitalise into the land price, year upon year, taxing income earners, instead of resource rents, which by design, distorts economic activity, housing supply policy, and subverts social justice.
<img src="/images/2014/08/11/cashmore%20aug%2011%20one.png" alt="">
(90% of taxation revenue has distortionary effects, pushing up prices 23% higher than need be, while economic rents from land and natural resources have no such deadweight loss.)
Never, throughout the course of history, has such a policy been sustainable. 
At some point the productive capacity of the economy can no longer support the boom and the consequences, particularly for first home buyers, can be particularly severe, as <a href="https://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/files/Bubble_Economics_Egan_Soos.pdf" target="_blank">Australia’s history of land induced financial crises reveal</a>.
However, when you appreciate how <a href="https://blog.australiaboomtobust.com/2014/08/propertied-federal-political-class/" target="_blank">lucrative</a> and wide spread this activity can be, it is very easy to see how policy fails us, and it’s additionally easy to see why a country with a plentiful supply of land like Australia, submits its younger generation to a life time worth of debt slavery, just to get onto the ‘property ladder’.
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Not a super idea: Raiding superannuation accounts will make affordability worse

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“Too many workers live too far away to fulfil our cities’ economic potential,” is the conclusion of a recently published study by the <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/" style="line-height: 1.3em;">Grattan institute</a>.
The report maps the dollar value of goods and services produced by workers within a particular area of Australia’s biggest cities.  Demonstrating a disproportionate 80% is created on just 0.2% of the nation’s land mass.
 <img src="/images/2014/07/28/cashmore%20july28%20one.png" alt="">
Source: Grattan Institute.
It mirrors findings highlighted in a recent speech by Luci Ellis, head of financial stability at the RBA, who collected the addresses of people’s workplaces from the 2011 Census, to construct a picture that is particularly striking if directly contrasted with where employees actually live.
<img src="/images/2014/07/28/cashmore-july28-two.gif" alt="">
“Inner areas have become even greater job magnets in recent years; some middle and outer areas added people, but not so many jobs, so their job-to-worker ratios actually declined,” wrote Ellis. 
Places with ratios well above 1 are employment centres. They pull in commuters across the city even from outside its borders. While the very pale fringe areas, attracting the largest population growth due to pressures of affordability, are the ‘commuter districts’, dormitory suburbs, where jobs and community infrastructure have failed to follow through.
The picture is one of increased social polarisation – fringe localities tend to face higher crime rates, elevated levels of unemployment, along with reports of <a href="https://theage.domain.com.au/health-fear-on-estates-20120314-1v3lw">depression and mental illness,</a>
Poor supply policy and delays zoning pockets within the urban boundaries for residential development, means a typical house and land package on a compact 450 square metre site, transacts for no less than $400,000.
Instead of a sensible system of bond financing, where residents pay back proportionally over a lengthy period of time, or a broad based land value tax to replace other taxes as advocated in the Henry Tax Review, funds for the provision of essential infrastructure are loaded onto the upfront cost of housing and promptly passed to the buyer. 
Yet councils can wait years for the finances to arrive.  The funds are only payable upon subdivision and with no control over the development or release of newly zoned land; buyers often pay for services they may never receive.
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The Grattan report is subtitled “Cities as Engines of Prosperity” and charts Australia’s evolution from a country that “made things”, into one that is now reliant on centrally clustered “knowledge-intensive and specialised services”.
<img src="/images/2014/07/28/cashmore%20july28%20three.png" alt="">
Together, the cities above, account for 15% of Australia’s economic activity but despite declining job-to-worker ratios in the outer suburbs, along with increases in the price-to-distance trade off for home buyers, only 8% of Australia’s employed population actually work in the central hubs of each major capital.
In Melbourne for example, over 50% of jobs in are located more than 13 kilometres from the inner core, with fewer that 20% of jobs in the CBD itself.
These are not high paying jobs however, which leads the authors to imply we need to move closer in and“minimise barriers to highly productive activity in CBDs and inner city areas”.
They suggest this would provide industries with a “wider range of potential workers to choose from”. 
 “Australia’s cities are the backbone of our economy, with CBDs and inner city areas critically important to the nation’s prosperity….The more highly skilled and specialised a job, the greater the need to find the best person to fill it.”
Knowledge based and specialised services cover a diverse area, including industries such as, finance, insurance, real estate, and business services, as well as cultural, media, communication, and education facilities for example.
They are gaining predominance across the globe, due to a technological boom that is powering us forward in an expansion not unlike the industrial revolution.
3-D printing is lowering the cost and logistics of production. Advances in the research of solar and renewable energy have paved the way for homeowners to store electricity overnight and possibly <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/storing-solar-power-is-the-key-to-cutting-energy-bills-csiro-says-20140502-zr2zw" target="_blank">disconnect from the grid</a> completely.  
Companies such as Uber and Lyft have created innovative apps to provide cheaper transport options for consumers and ironically, changes in the way we interact and communicate have allowed people and jobs to disperse over a broader footprint and successfully collaborate across international borders.
However, this is not where Australia excels.
Moves to take advantage of the innovation revolution have been continually hampered by government intervention, winding back tariffs and scaling down their 2020 Renewable Energy Target, acting to protect the cartel of the Taxi industry’s ‘licensing’ monopoly, and cutting funding to organisations such as the CSIRO. 
No - the predominant sector that yields the most “knowledge intensive” gains in Australia comes from the FIRE industry (finance, insurance, and real estate)– which has its infrastructure webbed like a parasite on the back of the great Australian housing boom. 
<img src="/images/2014/07/28/cashmore-july28-five.gif" alt="">
At a global banking conference in 2013, the question was asked: "Why the hell are Australian Banks performing so well!?" It was in response to a chart showing a decade rise in market capitalisation on the global banking index, from 2% to 14%.
The answer was obvious; the banking sector <a href="https://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredit/" target="_blank">makes its money by creating debt</a> – mostly mortgage debt and our highly leveraged ‘too big to fail four’ are the world’s most heavily exposed to residential and commercial real estate, capturing 88% of the mortgage market alone.
To be clear, the FIRE Economy is not a value adding economy; it profits by extracting economic rent from the debt on rising land values, impeding areas of productive enterprise and trading the interest in a multi trillion-dollar derivatives market to advantage those sitting at the top of the financial pyramid.
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To survive, the FIRE sector must sell the illusion that the economy and its participants can achieve economic prosperity through speculation on rising property values.
This has been assisted by tax, housing, and monetary policy, resulting in Australian’s holding some of the highest levels of private debt in the developed world. 
Tax withholdings or exemptions given to land holders for example, result in an increase of unearned monetary gains (economic rent) available to be capitalised at the current interest rate into the upfront cost of land. 
This was aptly demonstrated in a recent release by <a href="https://www.prosper.org.au/2014/07/24/negative-gearing-is-costing-you-a-lot-more-than-you-think/">Moodys’ Analytics</a>, estimating how the tax policy of negative gearing, has acted to inflate Australian house prices by no small degree.
 <img src="/images/2014/07/28/cashmore-july28-seven.gif" alt="">
Supply policy has further assisted.
Inelastic responses to market conditions have allowed professional land-bankers to squat on sites at low cost and secure windfall gains when the sites are later rezoned for residential development.
Allowing the uplift of land values to capitalise year upon year into the cost of housing, may be gift-wrapped with corporate spin to suggest it somehow benefits the community, however, a cursory analysis reveals the exact opposite to be true.
It raises the cost of living for every single household, increasing welfare costs, and leaving less to invest in sustainable industries that contribute to the county’s real ‘value adding’ economy. 
As demonstrated by the British economist and historian Fred Harrison in his book The Great Tax Clawback Scam.
The pull of the centralised core, where property values and wages are highest, results in decades of progressive taxes on every worker in the state being clawed back by a few, as inner city land values benefit from higher wages, increased demand and improvements to social infrastructure and transport arterials to do precisely as the Grattan review suggests – and keep us locked and reliant on a small pocket of land for our economic gains.
It brings with it the theory of urban consolation – reduce sprawl and force residents into apartments, however doing so can have the adverse effect of increasing sprawl, as lesser industries ‘hop’ the middle ring, in search of cheaper options and their employees move out further still.
If we were living in ancient Rome where walking was the general mode of transport, you could understand the need to stay centrally located; however we are not. 
We’re in an age of mobility where global research is being poured into innovative modes of transportation such as solar roads and electric cars.
If a buyer is able to travel to the supermarket, park and any other amenity on the priority list within a 30 or 40-minute period, the distance from the CBD is not an imposing factor. The decider is the time it takes to drop the kids off to school in one direction and travel to work in the other. 
Since the 1970s, successive governments have poured millions into incentives to try and decentralise and boost regional localities.  However, all attempts have failed, because the funding mechanism is flawed.
Decentralisation requires affordable land for both business and buyer, which is not unduly inflated due to policies that promote speculation, as well as growth enhancing infrastructure and flexible supply policy that responds in a timely manner to homebuyer (not speculator) demand.
The Henry Tax review was not slow to <a href="https://taxreview.treasury.gov.au/content/finalreport.aspx?doc=html/publications/papers/final_report_part_1/chapter_12.htm">point this out</a>, when it suggested slowly phasing out a vast array of ‘bad taxes’ that impede productivity and reduce mobility (stamp duty, payroll, insurance, vehicle registration, and so forth, as well as phasing out those that ‘reward’ speculation) and instead, collecting more of the economic rent from the unimproved value of land.
Historically, the capture of economic rent (through land tax and to some extent ‘betterment’ taxes) financed some of the most remarkable infrastructure we have. Sydney Harbour Bridge being a case in point.
It was <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/tony-abbotts-big-plans-at-odds-with-infrastructure-history/5404212">acknowledged</a> at the time, that residents on the north shore would benefit significantly from an increase in their property values as a result of this essential piece of infrastructure.  Therefore, a framework was set in place to capture a proportion of the uplift – approximately one third – to assist with funding.
This was in no way detrimental to the property owners.
The increased advantage of economic activity coupled with the rise in prices resulting from the enterprise, more than compensated. A win-win if you like – and readily accepted by the public as ‘fair’.
A more familiar example can be used for owners of apartments. 
When buyers purchase a unit, they expect to pay a yearly corporation fee for maintenance and improvement of community services. In doing so, it reduces the up front cost consumers are willing to pay as they configure the fee into their budget, yet it is also an investment, as the benefits and any subsequent improvement attracts future purchasers. 
A broad based land value taxation as advocated in the Henry Tax review is essentially no different.
In markets that have similar policies – a change in the tax mix, with higher taxation on land in lieu of those on productivity in order to fund related infrastructure, coupled with good supply policy, enables a process of decentralisation and increased affordability to follow through.  Both reforms work hand in hand.  
The prosperous economy of Texas in the USA is a good example of this.
Since June 2009, about 48% of all jobs created in America have been in the state; it has booming population growth, high levels of disposable income, low house prices and has been termed 'The Texas Miracle'.
This is because with no income tax employees get to keep more of their earnings while higher property taxes used to fund community infrastructure stem speculative inflation, which along with good supply policy has created a truly decentralised city, with only <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQtDHY_tkns" target="_blank">7% of jobs located ‘downtown’</a>.
We do not have to mirror another country’s policies, but it does prove the ability to create a system that provides a fairer regime for the funding of infrastructure and stops runaway house price gains.
However, in an economy that is dominated by the financial sector, and reports such as the latest Grattan review celebrating Australia’s city-centric culture, efforts to decentralise and produce a fairer system for all Australian’s is, once again, likely to fail.
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Catherine Cashmore

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