Government housing grants and tax breaks rated important for housing as deadlines loom: API survey
With less than three weeks to go until the Queensland government ends its $10,000 building boost scheme and only months remaining on a number of other state incentives, the majority of Australia’s biggest industry players believe government incentives still have a role to play in stimulating residential development.
Nearly nine out of 10 (86%) of the valuers, funds managers, property analysts and mortgage lenders who took part in the latest API Australian Property Directions Survey rated government incentives as moderately to extremely important.
More than a third (39%) rated them as extremely important, and nearly half (47%) as moderately important.
Only 14% of those surveyed saw no role for government incentive schemes.
Those surveyed included all the major banks, property groups Jones Lang LaSalle, Colliers International, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield and Chesterton International and listed fund mangers
The Queensland building boost is set to end on April 30, having already been extended once – it was originally due to expire on January 30 this year.
Four schemes are set to expire on June 30 and another two on July 1.
However government incentives also tend to bring forward demand and create vacuums in the future, as noted by BIS Shrapnel in its recent forecast reports.
“We started to see a pick-up in NSW And Western Australia towards the end of last year, which was emphasised by the expiration of stamp duty exemptions for existing properties,” BIS Shrapnel senior manager Angie Zigomanis said at the March 2012 Building Industry Prospects conference.
“But it is still weak in Victoria, and one of the reasons why it is still weak is because the state government has tended to keep the first-home buyer incentives fairly elevated, which has pushed forward demand.”