Property investor Philip Stork, his wife Banly Borromeo, daughter Hayley, 16, and dog Nelson.
Property investor Philip Stork warned that the prospect of the federal government changing negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions could be the “final straw” for him to sell up.
The semi-retired business owner has built up a portfolio of Victorian properties over years so he and his wife could retire comfortably, believing it was a “safe bet”.
But now Mr Stork said this could be the “final straw” for him to offload at least one of his homes, on top of the impact interest rate hikes and the state government’s land tax increases have already had.
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“We’re not troubling the government for a pension. We’ve gone in there, we’ve saved money,” he said.
“I’m so sorry I voted for (Anthony Albanese). I’m sitting on my hands here because we can’t do anything apart from voting him out.”
The 70-year old said if tax concessions were taken away from property investors, it would be “an absolute showstopper”.
Philip Stork has built up his property portfolio over years to create a nest egg for his and his wife’s retirement.
Jellis Craig Boroondara partner Peter Vigano said it would be “catastrophic” for Australia’s housing market as winding back these incentives would drive investors out and reduce the amount of rentals available.
“It is a very tunnelled vision the federal government has at the moment, they’re not really computing the effects of how many people will be homeless because there’s no rental properties,” Mr Vigano said.
“We’ve got an affordability crisis, you need to have properties for people to rent.”
Property Council chief executive Mike Zorbas said there was already a huge housing gap across Australa and modelled negative gearing changes widened that gap.
“Previous Deloitte modelling shows negative gearing changes shrink the number of new homes by about 4 per cent and, according to previous work by the Grattan Institute, only reduce house prices by 2 per cent,” Mr Zorbas said.
“We are already only building 160,000 homes against the 240,000 homes we need each year and housing supply conditions in states like Victoria are dire.”
Mike Zorbas said the government should be reducing taxes and charges to help boost supply.
He added that government taxes and charges were already 30 per cent of the cost of a new home across the country, which should be reduced to help boost supply, instead of focusing on something that could damage investment into new homes.
Negative gearing is when an investor spends more on the costs of their rental property — like council fees, land taxes and maintenance costs — than what they make.
If someone holds onto a property for more than 12 months before it is sold, they receive a 50 per cent discount off their capital gains tax.
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sarah.petty@news.com.au
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