Vic Labor: Landlords are unwelcome pariahs

The Vic labor government has gone down the path of demonising landlords and making the life of a landlord in Victoria a unsustainable, miserable existence.

Land tax on investment properties is out of control, tenants rights are out of control, landlord protections through VCAT can take years to enforce, minimum standards are out of control with the latest mooted batch to cost landlords, on average $5,000 per property.

Little wonder landlords are leaving Victoria in droves. Here are some key points from an article published today in The Age:
i) A survey by industry body Property Investments Professionals of Australia released in September found Victoria was, by a long margin, ranked as the least attractive state for housing investors in the nation.
ii) It also found that 24.8 per cent of respondents sold at least one investment property in Melbourne in the 12 months to August last year – also the highest in the nation.
iii) Housing investors are fleeing Victoria’s property market for other states with lower taxes, raising doubts about the future supply of rental properties.
iv) Over the year to May, house prices leapt 15.9 per cent in Brisbane, 10.3 per cent in Sydney, 25.3 per cent in Perth and 15.3 per cent in Adelaide. In Melbourne, house prices limped up by just 2.4 per cent over the year.
v) The state government announced what it called a COVID-19 debt levy in the 2023 state budget, clawing back an extra $4.7 billion from property investors over four years through higher land taxes.
vi) Economic research organisation e61 recently released a report showing Melburnians also face the biggest stamp duty impost in the nation, with the average home buyer is forced to shell out the equivalent of about six months of take-home income for a typical home – up from about two times at the turn of the millennium.

The current rental vacancy rate in Victoria is 0.8%, a balance market rental vacancy rate is considered to be 3%.

What the idiotic Vic Labor government forgets that in Australia 96% of all rental properties are provided by private investors. Labor in Victoria has turned the rental market into a class warfare battleground.

The consequences in Victoria and only Victoria of demonising property investors is on full display and it is a disaster.