James Limnios, Managing Director of Limnios Property Group near McIver Bus Station, Perth. Credit: Iain Gillespie/The West Australian
As a property professional, I have been at the front end of the single biggest social and financial issue facing our State — the ongoing housing crisis.
However, if you were a close follower of the current state election in WA, you would believe that the housing crisis, which is a dominant part of our cost-of-living crisis, had magically disappeared.
After years of hitting the headlines, it unfortunately barely rates a mention in the current State election.
Instead, the election seems to be dominated by a daily blitzkrieg of well-meaning public spending announcements unrelated to the housing crisis by all sides.
This avalanche of announcements from our various political parties includes everything from free public toy libraries to free public transport fares, free kindergarten, spending on new sporting and recreational facilities, ambulances, GPs, renewal energy infrastructure and electric vehicles to name a few.
Even the urban sprawl got into the act with a big financial boost of $700 million to upgrade the Kwinana Freeway from Roe Highway to Mortimer Road.
In contrast, if you ask any West Australian who is paying a mortgage or renting a home, the housing crisis is their No. 1 priority and will continue to be so unless we have meaningful policies to fix the problem.
The reality is that many West Australians are spending more than 40 per cent of their weekly income just to keep a roof over their head.
They have seen the median cost of a house surge by over $250,000 since the last election to $750,000 in Perth. And this does not include 13 interest rate rises to help pay for the massive increase in the cost of owning a home.
People renting have been hit equally hard with the weekly cost of renting a house jumping by over $350 since the last election.
Rents continue to rise with weekly rents for a house now hitting $672. This time last year it was around $600 per week. It will not be long before it hits $700 per week.
Meanwhile, house prices in Perth continue to be on an upward trajectory with prices expected to rise by around 10 per cent during the coming year. That means an extra $75,000 in borrowing costs for the average home buyer.
If we don’t fix the housing crisis soon, I predict within three years, the median price of a house in Perth will be more than $1 million.
While recent cost-of-living announcements are very welcome, it is only a pinprick dent in the huge amount of money families now have to pay to keep a roof over their heads because of our housing crisis in WA.
And that brings me back to the State election. While I acknowledge the very worthwhile efforts of the State Government to deal with the housing crisis, much more needs to be done to fix the problem.
During this election we need substantive policy initiatives that in their entirety over the course of the election will provide a blueprint over the next four years to once again make Perth one of the most affordable and liveable places in Australia to buy or rent a home.
That has not happened, and it will be a tragedy for all West Australians if our housing crisis remains a footnote in this very important State election because it is being snowed over by daily public spending announcements.
I strongly encourage our political leaders to urgently focus on the housing crisis during the remaining days of our election so we can protect West Australians from this number one cost of living crisis in our State.
Over the past few years, like many other concerned people in WA, I have been proactive in putting forward positive ideas and proposals to solve our housing crisis.
These have included the adoption of lower construction cost methods and encouragement of medium-density housing in many under-utilised parts of the city. Other initiatives to help solve the housing crisis could include:
A stamp duty freeze for five years for off-plan sales for urban infill and a 50 per cent reduction of rates and taxes for five years;
For those building three or more residential accommodation units, rates and taxes should be 25 per cent of normal cost if kept as rental stock for a three to five-year period;
Approval decisions for developments of between three and 50 units are to be made within 60 days.
When combined, these initiatives could quickly create thousands of affordable homes for West Australians at a lower cost than taxpayer-funded urban sprawl.
