It is all about attitude.
We live in an era where home ownership sits cheek by jowl with adulthood: for generations, you have made it when you buy a house because you have invested in yourself and your future. It just feels sensible.
Primally, having a home of your own also feels secure and safe – a place to hunker down when the cold winds blow and the world closes in.
But a huge portion of our society will never own where they live, and the skyrocketing sales prices are forcing that portion upwards.
Renting must cease being looked at as the second prize for those who can’t own a home, and embraced as an acceptable way of living.
Socially and politically, we must stop looking at housing primarily as a financial asset and focus on it as a human need.
Housing is a complex issue, made messy by the combination of matters of the heart and cold, hard money making.
For starters, there is consensus among economists that negative gearing favours investors’ interests over others.
Phasing it out would see rental prices fall and help affordability, but Heaven help the political party that does that, as they bravely did in New Zealand last year.
The Reserve Bank this week said incentives laid out to goad the economy along had contributed to the kick-on housing problems we are now suffering.
Subsidies such as first home buyer grants and HomeBuilder boosted demand for homes and that helped push up house prices, knocking many out of the market and cementing their place in the tightest rental market in living memory.
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But governments cause problems, then are heroes for helping solve them, such as our State Government’s much-touted $1 billion Housing Investment Fund, the largest social and affordable housing outlay in Queensland history.
And around we go.
The incoming Commonwealth Labor Government’s shared-equity scheme, which allows eligible first home buyers to share up to 40 per cent of the purchase price with the Government, is also likely to be jumped on.
But buying on such a small deposit is risky, particularly with rising interest rates and a housing market downturn likely in coming years. If a house is worth less than the debt held against it, things can quickly turn bad – and it is unclear whether the government would share the downside risk if the property had to be sold.
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We need a shift in attitude.
Housing co-operatives work brilliantly in places such as Sweden and Finland, where they hold about 20 per cent of the housing stock. Far from the hippy commune or social housing stamp held here, it means more investors and renters get better.
Living in a house that suits the size of a family instead of sized to impress would help make room for more people of differing circumstances too.
In matters of human rights and needs such as housing, the head, heart and community must all be accommodated.
Jane Stephens is a USC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer. The views expressed are her own.
