Is this the end of NRAS? Frozen fifth round of applications
The National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS), which brings new rentals 20% below market rent into existence through incentives to developers, has come under fire over the past week.
Just today, it has been announced that 20 new townhouses are available under NRAS in Redcliffe, with the Minister for Housing and Public Works Tim Mander noting that it's families who are their target.
“The development on John Street includes 28 townhouses, with 20 of those to be offered under the NRAS initiative," said Mander.
“I would like to congratulate Aspire Housing Group and Zest Homes for delivering a quality development that will go a long way to helping people find an affordable place to live.”
They have recently past the 7,000 mark for NRAS dwellings built in Queensland.
“NRAS is important because it increases the supply of new affordable rental housing, and also provides a real alternative to social housing for low to moderate income households," he said.
Property Observer has previously explored whether the scheme deserves to be scrapped, however its future is still uncertain.
The $4.5 billion project is said to be all but dead by The Australian, who noted that senior government sources had told them that it will face a ‘revamp’ to deliver savings in the budget. This comes after the current round of NRAS applications, round five, has been put on ice, which they reported saw applications for the 80,000 incentives halted.
There have been numerous concerns over the scheme, one of which has been the trading of NRAS entitlements, which has been referred on to ASIC. Another has been the number of ‘wealthy’ international students apparently living in this accommodation. The Australian pointed to commonwealth figures suggesting that of 19,000 tenants of the NRAS scheme, 1,500 are international students.
However, this point in particular has been heavily contested by The Fifth Estate columnist Willow Aliento investigation who believes they’ve run their numbers incorrectly – mistaking 19,000 ‘incentives’ for 19,000 ‘tenants’. The Fifth Estate also reports that the Greens’ Senator Scott Ludlam, who said that NRAS works but that they need more, with super funds and institutional investors not touching the scheme.
At the end of the day, even for individual investors there are significant pros and cons to the scheme that have had some commentators asking for an open mind to be kept, and others, notoriously, saying they’d rather stick a fork in their eye than buy it.
Readers, what do you think:
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