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We can reduce the rent in Brisbane, but not by banning Airbnb (www.brisbanetimes.com.au)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It appears that where rental stock has been removed from the market, it is much more likely that a home has been purchased by an owner-occupier than to be used for [short-term accommodation]

They said there was “no doubt” the key issue driving rental market disruption in Queensland was a limited supply of homes despite strong demand.

They said a 10 per cent increase in total dwellings could cause rent prices to drop by 1 to 2 per cent.

Those are some key quotes, IMO. It's becoming increasingly clear that the private market is not going to solve this problem under the current conditions. They don't want to build large quantities of new homes, because that doesn't maximise profit relative to slowly releasing a large apartment building here and there. We need incentives for large amounts of housing to be built at once, and we need the government to be far more involved in that process.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

On the other hand, this comment under the article has some truth to it:

I think it's a case of lots and small measures that will move the dial, as no one measure will get the desired outcome.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

No argument there, BUT it's not just as simple as building more houses. It's no use building a bunch of affordable houses out at Toowoomba if all the jobs are still in Brisbane, as people still need to live near where they work. There are already plenty of affordable places to live, they are just too far for most people to commute. And nobody really likes the idea of knocking down houses close to Brisbane and replacing them with towering apartment blocks - the traffic is already bad enough as-is.

With more companies pushing for employees to come back to the office, I do wonder whether some sort of tax incentive to encourage remote work would be better. If a company received a financial incentive for each employee who lived more than 100 km from their base of operations, not only would that make it easier for people who cannot work remotely (e.g. peak hour traffic wouldn't be so bad) but it might help revitalise some of these country towns that are suffering from dwindling populations.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes exactly! Why would the people who profit from a lack of supply want to build more properties to reduce demand. It's like letting a shark be responsible for increasing fish populations. It's the same mindset that led to the PwC situation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It’s an idea that could work in a perfectly competitive market, but there are far too many ways in which housing is not perfectly competitive for it to work here.

It could probably be improved a lot if there were a blanket increase in zoning. One of the problems is that currently most of what we’ve got is either the extremely inefficient low density zoning, or the extreme other end of the scale with tall inner-city apartments. Tall apartments are logistically very difficult and expensive to build, so they only get built when they can get maximum profit. That means few get built, and the developers have every incentive to try to get permission to build as many storeys as they possibly can.

If we instead blanket increased all our zoning to allow for medium density, it would be affordable for more people to develop in that area because medium density is logistically much simpler and cheaper to build, and requires less investment. And by making it such a large blanket change across all of our low-density at once you decrease the ability for a small number of landowners to "land bank" to drive up prices. It pushes the housing development market a little bit closer to that perfect competition and away from oligopoly. Still a long way from a true theoretical perfectly competitive market, but better.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why not do both, or tax airbnb on then no matter if they are occupied or empty

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The AirBnB is already "taxed" when it's empty because the owner still has to pay rates, loan interest, body corp, etc. so they are already losing money if nobody is there. They would appear to be popular enough that that 'tax' is still a better deal than putting the place up for long term rent.

With the recent rule changes limiting rent increases but interest rates still so high, a short term rental is now probably more attractive to a property owner than a long term rental as far as covering the costs of owning the property.

If you want fewer AirBnBs and more rentals available, make it more attractive for property owners to provide long term rents, don't put them all off like they are doing now by making it such a hassle to make a place available for rent.