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Western Australia housing minister Bill Marmion’s promise to “flood the market with land” continues to be slammed by the real estate industry.
Last week, RE/MAX WA managing director Geoff Baldwin said the promise was nothing more than a “look at me statement”.
While Mr Baldwin said he supports the government’s intentions to increase supply, he said the minister’s comment that the “government will oversupply the market with land” was political “hot air”.
“There are a dozen other actions that would need to happen for it to have any effect on land prices and making statement like ‘the government will oversupply the market with land and bring down house prices’ is not only sensationalistic, headline seeking rubbish, it is potentially very harmful to established property owners,” Mr Baldwin told Real Estate Business.
“Every person in the industry would like to see a freeing up of government land and a massive reduction in red tape but no person who owns property wants to hear a minister saying that he will diminish the value of their prime asset.”
Many real estate agents voiced their support for Mr Baldwin and said Mr Marmion did not understand the far reaching effects of the current poor land release and subdivision approval processes.
Real estate professional Brian Parkes said there is a real and urgent need to look at the state’s supply problem.
“If we consider the WA economy as a whole, what would happen if the land subdivision process was streamlined, with lower fees, even "incentives" offered by government to develop in certain areas where more land was needed? Land release needs to be given higher priority very quickly,” Mr Parkes said.
“More land means greater sustainable economic growth, more jobs, more income for land owners, lower land prices, more homeowners, less pressure on the rental market, more financial independence and less reliance on Centrelink. It is well known across this nation that land supply is continually falling short of demand.
“It is worth mentioning, people in many regional towns and surrounding rural areas are being financially strangled by the current restrictions. There are a considerable number of ageing landowners in country areas who will become reliant on Centrelink support because the land subdivision they were relying on for their retirement existence has been prevented by overly restrictive planning policy changes in recent years. Too much focus has been on "sound planning policy" without sufficient regard for social implications.”
