Jan 20, 2023·edited Jan 20, 2023Liked by Cameron Murray
I'll add a human element to this conundrum.
My grandparents live in a 3BR (+ study) detached house in rapid growth area - an outer suburban housing estate in Cranbourne, VIC. They are in their 80s and their health is declining, and really cannot maintain the property any more. They need to downsize into a smaller home temporarily, because should one of them die in a couple of years they will need to downsize again.
Now of course the pension asset test is the biggest culprit here. If they sell and rent, they lose the pension. But the Stamp Duty issue means if they buy a similarly priced, better located/amenities and higher quality/density town-house or apartment, even for a short period of a few years, they will be slugged on the move. Then potentially slugged on the next move when the remaining widow needs to move again (or maybe just go to aged-care).
The only alternative I can think of to game the tax/transfer system would be to sell, put the money in a trust for the kids and then spend their remaining days renting.
Now one could shrug and say "ah well, stamp duty just delayed the forced transaction for a few years". However the human cost and impact this has on people's quality of life (especially in their final years) is very real. Sure there is also a young family that is then also denied access to a more suitable home and perhaps forced to live in higher density elsewhere - as pointed out the flow on effects for them are temporary and likely small anyway. But for the elderly couple and their families it just adds to the difficulties. There are clear cases of inefficiency here, as well as inequity. I don't think we can really measure this using rubbish CGE models, but it still exists.
Really the case for pay as you go land taxes to replace stamp duties is still strong, and I think it's still a matter of framing and also working out creative solutions to some of the salience issues to make it work.
But the real question is, what exactly is the purpose of stamp duty? Sure the actual cost registering the sale and recording it in the title is no where near the the $200K ++ which is stamp duty today. I'm guessing the surplus goes towards funding "study tours" for politicians to Paris in summer and Aspen in the winter.
Is there a risk that downsizers compete with young families / first homebuyers, so it becomes harder for people to get on the property ladder? When we bought our first house we kept missing out to cashed up downsizers who sold there 5 bed home in the suburbs and were buying a 2-3 bed place closer to the city. They were less price conscious and put pressure on the segment that is most price sensitive.
Apply this to a Melbourne, 500,000 people over 70, owning say 250,000 houses out of roughly 2 million houses total. With your assumption of 10% downsizers, that is 25,000 freed up larger homes right at the start of the policy change, often in well located areas. This is certainly a material number (even if Victoria builds say 50,000 a year) and doesn't require the use of any resources to build those houses.
And as you point out with the example, bringing forward in time relocations that will happen anyway does result in a once off gain at the start, this is actually a good thing, as without thinking through the maths one might conclude inadvertantly that bringing things forward has no effect.
I'll add a human element to this conundrum.
My grandparents live in a 3BR (+ study) detached house in rapid growth area - an outer suburban housing estate in Cranbourne, VIC. They are in their 80s and their health is declining, and really cannot maintain the property any more. They need to downsize into a smaller home temporarily, because should one of them die in a couple of years they will need to downsize again.
Now of course the pension asset test is the biggest culprit here. If they sell and rent, they lose the pension. But the Stamp Duty issue means if they buy a similarly priced, better located/amenities and higher quality/density town-house or apartment, even for a short period of a few years, they will be slugged on the move. Then potentially slugged on the next move when the remaining widow needs to move again (or maybe just go to aged-care).
The only alternative I can think of to game the tax/transfer system would be to sell, put the money in a trust for the kids and then spend their remaining days renting.
Now one could shrug and say "ah well, stamp duty just delayed the forced transaction for a few years". However the human cost and impact this has on people's quality of life (especially in their final years) is very real. Sure there is also a young family that is then also denied access to a more suitable home and perhaps forced to live in higher density elsewhere - as pointed out the flow on effects for them are temporary and likely small anyway. But for the elderly couple and their families it just adds to the difficulties. There are clear cases of inefficiency here, as well as inequity. I don't think we can really measure this using rubbish CGE models, but it still exists.
Really the case for pay as you go land taxes to replace stamp duties is still strong, and I think it's still a matter of framing and also working out creative solutions to some of the salience issues to make it work.
Agreed.
But the real question is, what exactly is the purpose of stamp duty? Sure the actual cost registering the sale and recording it in the title is no where near the the $200K ++ which is stamp duty today. I'm guessing the surplus goes towards funding "study tours" for politicians to Paris in summer and Aspen in the winter.
Is there a risk that downsizers compete with young families / first homebuyers, so it becomes harder for people to get on the property ladder? When we bought our first house we kept missing out to cashed up downsizers who sold there 5 bed home in the suburbs and were buying a 2-3 bed place closer to the city. They were less price conscious and put pressure on the segment that is most price sensitive.
I'm not so sure about your conclusion of "small".
Apply this to a Melbourne, 500,000 people over 70, owning say 250,000 houses out of roughly 2 million houses total. With your assumption of 10% downsizers, that is 25,000 freed up larger homes right at the start of the policy change, often in well located areas. This is certainly a material number (even if Victoria builds say 50,000 a year) and doesn't require the use of any resources to build those houses.
And as you point out with the example, bringing forward in time relocations that will happen anyway does result in a once off gain at the start, this is actually a good thing, as without thinking through the maths one might conclude inadvertantly that bringing things forward has no effect.