Simon Corbell intends to flood the real estate market.

Evictor – what you have to understand is that people borrow to the edge of their capacity to repay and then find the best available house for that money.

So, now that the material improvements to the block are significantly divorced from the price of the package, Stamp duty is actualy a social positive and largely unrelated to the cost of buying a house.

If they whacked it UP it would possibly make housing more affordable, and certainly take money from property speculators.

maybe if they just got rid of stamp duty they would find many more people able to get into the market without the need for an oversupply as they seem to be proposing here.

typical to release land but have no plan to provide roads, public transport etc.

another brilliant planning move…

Having bought my first house in the last two years, I can’t say I’m thrilled with the prospect of my investment devalualating, which is potentialy possible if this land release is not managed correctly.

On the other hand, it’s fantastic for first home buyers. I hate to think that there are so many people who are continually struggling their guts out to pay rent (somebody elses mortgage)! At least when I struggled (and still do) I know that I have an objective in mind.

More power if this makes a difference to housing prices; I just hope the ACT Gov’t assists first home buyers more in the future.

I’ve long been of the opinion that the Stanhope Government’s land release strategy has been geared toward protecting the property prices of their social climbing (‘aspirational’) party constituents.

I, too, am overjoyed if he can force a downturn in prices. Just one problem – previous land releases have been priced at “market value” which, contrary to how an ecconomist might interperate the phrase, actually meant that they were priced to “maintain the value of the land of people who’d already bought”, regardless of whether this meant the land got sold or not. (This was how one of the LDA representatives explained it to me – I’m not just making it up). If they’ve abandoned that idea due to the poor sales they got, great, but I’ll save my applauding until the prices actually drop.

Just two questions – where/what specifically are the “green fields ?” And does ‘Boogs’ refer to Monika who used to toil, if memory serves aright, at the Canberra Crimes ?

It also means that he’s trying to prop up the building industry by making more land available for them to build on.