25 May 2009

Land releases accelerated to gobble up the first home buyers grant

| johnboy
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Chief Minister Stanhope is claiming to be striking a blow for housing affordability by giving a hurry up to land releases:

    Two residential development sites, one at West Macgregor and one at Casey, will be released by direct sale to the developers already delivering blocks on adjacent land, to accelerate land release and boost housing affordability.

    Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said the releases, at least a year ahead of schedule, would ensure as many Canberrans as possible could take advantage of the six-month extension to the Commonwealth’s enhanced first home owner grant.

It looks to me like someone’s trying to flog as much land before the market turns south.

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I dunno – it doesn’t sound particularly convincing to me. Isn’t the West Macgregor development only a third sold? They’ve been advertising the tits of it on the telly.

And if it is true, why are people complaining about the release of land? In this case, presumably the release of more land would actually reduce house prices – I just can’t see it happening. If housing unaffordability is being determined by the refusal to release land, why would anyone speculate that “someone’s trying to flog as much land before the market turns south”? The market would turn south *because* someone’s flogging land, not the other way around.

If that argument was true, then the release of stacks of around the ACT land would see housing prices plummet dramatically, regardless of the state of the wider real estate market. I just can’t see it happening.

Regardless, the market seems (to me, anyway) to be a lot more complex than that. Not that I know much about it, mind you.

By withholding residential land. All the greenfield development in the ACT is drawn from land held by the ACT Government.

Control residential land supply, control house prices.

poptop said :

So the ACT Government inflates house prices

How does this happen? I honestly don’t understand.

So the ACT Government inflates house prices to the extent that Canberra is the most unaffordable city in Australia and then we’re supposed to applaud them for dribbling out some land?

I’d like to hear a bit more detail on the direct sale of the land to specific developers too. Presumably it also involves some fast tracking of development approvals to get the homes out the door before the First Home Owners Boost ends.

Sounds like a buddy-buddy deal to me.

James T Kirk8:42 am 26 May 09

I just love this whole land release system.

Can somebody please explain the logical step that is used to rationalise releasing land to allow building thousands of extra homes in a community that hovers around stage 3 – 4 water restrictions?

Where is the extra H2O coming from?

Ahhh – I forgot – it is all about RATES!

Sad really!

Ceej1973 said :

If he (Nohope) wants to allow as many Canberrans to be able to take advantage of purchasing land in Canberra, he might want to reign in developers like CIC, who do not accept cheques from Credit Unions.When we purchased land a few years ago, we had to get the Solicitor to deposit the funds into CIC’s bank account for this reason. The Solicitor was nice enough to wave thier fee, which was lower anyway than what we would have had to pay should we had to have a special bank cheque written up. Seems ridiculous given the large number of Credit Unions in this City, linked to Government Departments.

Pretty much all banks and sellers (via their solicitors) will not accept credit union cheques on the settlement of a property, and for good reason. Bank cheques are drawn on a seperate regulated account, and can be treated as clear funds. Credit union corporate cheques are simply drawing funds from the member’s account, meaning if there is an issue with the account (overdrawn, etc) then there is a possibility the cheque can be cancelled

Obviously this is not good when you are dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars, and have just handed over the keys to the property!

Almost all the credit unions that I have dealt with are aware that bank cheques are required on settlement, and have an arrangement with a nearby bank for when they are required.

I am surprised your solicitor didnt explain this to you.

/derail

Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said the releases, at least a year ahead of schedule, would ensure as many Canberrans as possible could take advantage of the six-month extension to the Commonwealth’s enhanced first home owner grant.

If he (Nohope) wants to allow as many Canberrans to be able to take advantage of purchasing land in Canberra, he might want to reign in developers like CIC, who do not accept cheques from Credit Unions.When we purchased land a few years ago, we had to get the Solicitor to deposit the funds into CIC’s bank account for this reason. The Solicitor was nice enough to wave thier fee, which was lower anyway than what we would have had to pay should we had to have a special bank cheque written up. Seems ridiculous given the large number of Credit Unions in this City, linked to Government Departments.

so Stanhope is selling more land that cannot be built on for 18 months

… and cream off that 14k and 22k before the larger amount stops flowing, and new house prices fall… by exactly that amount. New home buyer grants are crap, what they should do is for people buying their first home, take off stamp duty and other useless gov’t taxes. They’ll be competing with people who aren’t getting that, and so it shouldn’t affect prices too much, although it might at the cheaper end of the market.

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