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2009-07-03

Australians are worse off in housing due to government inefficiencies and lack of competition

Comments on Robert Gottliebsen “Locking in property prices”, 3/07/2009, http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Locking-in-property-prices-pd20090703-TKT9F?OpenDocument&src=sph

It is always good to see property prices go up for owners as well as for investors. It is also good in the current economic environment.

But in the long term, is Australia going to have property market bubbles due to government current processes or planning? Or will Australians always have to pay more for those inefficient government doings?

Internationally speaking, the ratio of average house price to average income in Australia is higher than its main international counterparts, such as the US, UK and possibly Japan. What that says is that Australians spend proportionately more of their income on housing than people in those other countries. If one has to spend more on housing, he can only spend less on other things.

We need to remove all unnecessary inefficiencies, whether they are from the private sector, or government. Australians’ welfares may be improved by remove those inefficiencies. Those inefficiencies should be a shame rather than proud for Australia.

Australia has relatively more land available for housing and Australians should be able to enjoy that advantage. But we are aparently not being able to do that.

Another factor may be that there is a lack of or insufficient competition in the building industry, so the costs of building houses are inflated by that process as well.

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