The Real Estate Institute of New South Wales (REINSW) is calling on the state government to reinstate first homebuyer incentives following a decrease in the number of first homebuyer sales.
“First homebuyers are an essential link in the chain of the entire market and by excluding them it causes a great disturbance,” said REINSW president Christian Payne.
Payne added that first homebuyers are a unique category of property consumers and that ‘the jump they have to make from a standing start to acquiring a property’ can be huge.
“The current strategy of directing first homebuyers to new property has not achieved what they wanted. In fact, it has adversely affected the volume of property transactions,” he said.
The $7,000 first homebuyers’ grant for those buying existing properties was abolished in September last year and replaced with a new grant of $15,000 for first home buyers purchasing newly built dwellings.
However, Payne said the new system is too problematic.
“The strategy of the government to direct first homebuyers towards new property is flawed because it suggests demand is the issue, when in fact supply is the issue. The inhibitors of supply are the convoluted planning system and the government’s dependency on property taxation.”
