Housing Publications

Foreign Investment in Real Estate

20 March 2015

The proposed tax on foreign purchases of new dwellings and ban on purchases of established dwellings is unusual among developed countries outside of heavily land-constrained jurisdictions (Hong Kong and Singapore). Placing a special tax on foreign buyers of housing has similarities to an export tax on domestic products. 

The Impact of Government Land Regulation

6th Annual Housing Congress, Brisbane 28 June 2011

The proposed tax on foreign purchases of new dwellings and ban on purchases of established dwellings is unusual among developed countries outside of heavily land-constrained jurisdictions (Hong Kong and Singapore). Placing a special tax on foreign buyers of housing has similarities to an export tax on domestic products. 

Regulation and Urban Property Prices

August 2010

Submission to the Productivity Commission’s Review of Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Planning, Zoning and Development Assessments

The great lock out: The impact of housing and land regulations in Western Australia

Occasional Paper, April 2009

This  paper  examines  impediments  to  housing  affordability  in  Western  Australia.  It  establishes  that government  regulations  have a  pervasive impact in  restricting  the  supply  and  raising  the  cost  of new  housing which, in  turn,  places  upwards  pressure  on all  house  prices. 

How land supply restrictions have locked young people out of the housing market

IPA Review, 2009

Adjusted for inflation, the price of houses in Australia has more than doubled (trebled in Sydney and Perth) over the past 30 years. How has this occurred? In a landmark address to the Housing Industry Association in July 2005 .....

Land Regulations, Housing Prices and Productivity

Agenda, Volume 14, Number 1, 2007, pages 35-50

Land in Australia is more abundant than in almost any other country in the world and urban land, like rural land and mineral wealth, ought to be a component of the nation's comparative advantage.

The Values Deficit

9 March 2007

Address to the Australian Financial Review Housing Conference:  The two most salient indicators of the housing market are the comparisons of median prices over time and the comparison of those prices in different Australian cities and in cities worldwide.

THE TRAGEDY OF PLANNING Losing the Great Australian Dream

First published 2006 by the Institute of Public Affairs (Incorporated in the ACT) A.C.N. 008 627 727

I was inspired to write this book by observing the regulatory morass that has grown up around the provision of housing. A house is at one and the same time most people’s major investment and the source of shelter which, with food and clothing, forms one of the trio of life’s essentials. Housing is however much more than this

Fixing the crisis: A fair deal for homebuyers

PA Backgrounder, October 2006

This submission supports the aspirations of average Australian families and argues that current planning policies, more than any other factor, restrict the capacity of first home buyers, and other less advantaged groups, from achieving a goal of home ownership. 

Housing Affordability

Address to HIA - July 2005

Housing, as a good that is not internationally tradeable has its costs determined by the efficiency with which the supply of housing stock is made available to buyers and the demand for the product itself.

Planning restraints A plague on wealth and the democratic process

IPA Review April 2006

Winding back the intrusiveness of planning laws and providing legal protection to the individual in the use of his or her property will result in more affordable housing and lower cost shopping facilities.

Prices and planning: The state of the housing industry

IPA Review, September 2005

In terms of efficiency of supply, Australia has the benefit of a house building industry that is low cost and which readily adapts to provide consumers with the product they want.