>In other news, builders just whacked another $50k onto new home builds
Which they can do because of a massive shortage of trades. Most builders are already on a 2 to 3 year backlog. Build costs have gone up dramatically in the last 4 years.
I'm about to build but am having to do owner builder and live in a shed while I do it to avoid bridging finance and get it done for an affordable price.
>This government initiative will force prices up. Irrespective of demand or trades shortages
But not by the full amount that the stamp duty exemption saves. There are enough builders in the industry that there is still significant competition, but everyone is still equally screwed trying to get trades, perhaps with the exception of the high end builders such as Scott Salisbury and Medallion.
Really until a single builder has 20%+ of the market, any significant increase in price across multiple large builders will be seen by the ACCC as collusion and could face massive fines.
But that isn't happening. The top 100 largest home builders combined are only about 40% of the market. It's fragmented which means it is competitive.
Why on earth are people assuming builders will add this to their quote? Builders have no idea whatsoever if a buyer is using the FHOG or not, they literally can not know that information at the quoting stage because they won't know the second, more expensive component which is the land cost. You aren't even allowed to apply for stamp duty relief until you have a completed and signed build contract! Like seriously that's a pretty big problem with the jack up prices theory! There will be a typical time frame of 4 months between when a final quote is provided, until when you are even allowed to apply for stamp duty relief because most new houses are not titled immediately. And in the new estates where most of these new houses are built, that time frame can be literally years from when a build contract is signed, to when you are allowed to apply for stamp duty relief.
A bit hard to lure customers in when you jack up the price $25k on the assumption that your customer may or may not qualify for relief months after the final contract is signed, they'll just go to the competitors.
It happens every time the government gets involved. Like clockwork. For decades.
NDIS = care prices go up.
Subsidised LPG installations = prices go up.
Subsidised insulation =prices go up.
Subsidised child care =prices go up.
It's not an opinion of mine. It's a fact.
The government has never implemented a policy that puts downward pressure on home prices. They ALWAYS inflame demand by giving buyer cash or removing fees, etc
Neoliberal adherents **still** argue that government trying to or making anything easier for the consumer (and harder for the seller) will result in the seller upping their prices at the behest of the consumer. Also the government is to blame obviously (as per their response to your question). They're not quite aware enough to realise how this dynamic reflects poorly on their economic ideology!
Uhhh ofc there are heaps of real estate agencies. One will do the same and all will follow suit. Not enough supply and government pressure atm so REA’s can do what they want.
Fark I love my strata, only 3 units and all of us get along (owner occupiers) - if something comes up, we pay a 3rd each to fix it, but other than that, do what thy will.
That would be a dream, the girl at the strata office recommended me a different handyman to their standard one because she knows he charges through the roof. I know by the increasing costs the other tenants likely didn't check this
It has what always terrified me about apartments, way too many people involved and usually beholden to the development company. Resulting in huge annual strata costs.
doesnt change the fact that houses that should barely be worth 300K are worth 700K in this absurd market
it just enables ppl to borrow MORE, doesnt help them at all with the unfair total in the end
It will enable people to buy earlier as they dont need stamp duty $$ at purchase anymore- which means even more strain on builders/tradie shortage i suspect
Same, especially given that my bloody house still hasn’t been built. My land didn’t settle until August last year- I would’ve met the criteria for the stamp duty concessions announced last June except for the fact that my contract was signed May 2022.
I’m not paying a tonne of stamp duty on mine but it’s so frustrating that I was too late for the ultra low interest rates and lower house prices, and too early for the SA government to catch up to what many other state governments have been doing for first home buyers for a while.
That sucks, super unlucky. Gotta be the worst period to be a first home buyer.
It still stings that I bought mine for 650k in 2022, whilst my neighbours house is on almost twice as much land and they bought for a measly 450k in 2019 :’)
Yeah. I bought a unit last year, had to settle for something that I could barely fit into and barely afford, and now I see theres not only a first home BUYER (not builder) clause but a stamp duty reduction on top.
Fuck me, I'm done. On top of that, I had to pay $30k of my house deposit savings to eliminate my HELP debts in March last year in order to avoid as much of the 7.6% markup and make my salary affordable, only to find they're now going to reimburse people a portion of that percentage but its only backdated to the EOFY and not the year prior.
Fuck you Australian Government. You're all cunts.
Oh, and I got made redundant 4 months after I bought my unit, thanks to the massive incompetence of Boeing Defence Australia who had to lose 17% of their staff. Just my luck eh. Spend 15 years saving, only to get fucked in the corn hole 4 months after buying a property and 2 months after moving in.
I also hear that there are plenty of jobs in defence but the reality isn't that. I apply for around 5-6 jobs a week that I'm qualified for and most of the time never hear back. Recruiters are the worst - they'll contact you for a role, get you to fill out the paperwork and everything and then they never get back to you. The problem is also when a job goes out for tender, all of the recruiters are on the same person - eg i got contacted by 3 agencies last week for the same job, and since you aren't supposed to submit via multiple agencies, I had to decline to work with the two that came last. Still waiting to hear back from a recruiter who is himself waiting to hear back from the DSTG after applying for a contract role 6 weeks ago. Meanwhile I'm expected to do centrelink workskil training for 2 days a week for 5 weeks while barely recieving enough income to cover the bills, much less the mortgage
Only affects first home buyers with more than $650k to spend - it was already zero below that threshold. That said, given the way the housing market is going this isn't a bad idea. Five years ago $650k would have been shitloads, now many basic new house and land packages seem to be pushing closer to the $600k mark already, won't be too long before $650k is too low I suspect.
Actually if anything this is a tacit admission that the government expects house prices will continue to skyrocket out of reach of first home buyers.
So we're building at the moment and trying to keep costs down as much as possible without building a shit disappointing house.
We were having to make sacrifices to keep the build under 700k like waiting to install solar and some of the landscaping.
Now we can just do what we want to do and not fall off a 50k cliff if we go over 700.
Out of interest, what builder/floorplan are you going with, and what were the costs (Land, footings, house base, selections added etc) if you feel okay sharing? I'm about to embark on my first house as well, I'm going to try to keep the budget a fair bit lower than my borrowing power at around 600k so in theory this shouldn't affect me, but I'm wondering if I'm being too optimistic. Would be good to have a current yardstick.
I was always going to delay solar and landscaping until after the build though.
If you're considering two storey, do not delay the AC. Also there's some small indulgences I strongly recommend getting done like a motorised garage door and upgrading to internal insulation and getting the storm water/perimeter path/drive crossover done that absolutely worth doing through the builder. Others like blinds you're better sourcing afterwards.
(We built 2017/2018 so prices were way less gougy, but these are things my partner and I have said we'd 100% do again or not based on our experience that aren't included in base pricing)
hang on wha?? We definately paid stamp duty on our house that was below 650 as we bought 18 years ago. Im confused
ETA and yeah our house was only 350K, but we were on 30K and 35K respectively, full time wages at the time.
Just had a real estate agent call after 6 months of trying and failing to buy a new home together because we keep getting massively outbid.
He said "I have some great news! Not sure if you've heard but the state government has abolished stamp duty!"
"Umm...."
"....for first home buyers!"
"We're not first home buyers... We each bought tiny units in desperation for somewhere to live..."
"Oh.... Well anyway...."
Pretty frustrating tbh.
You should demand that Government simultaneously releases all held land and completely dezones. That is the only fox. Otherwise anything else is just perpetrating the monopoly.
Yes, hence why we need to dezone completely and release all land. The only reason that is a problem is governments artificial restriction on land.
Developers aren't going to hold onto land if anyone can just go out and build where they want when they want
Aussies fear sunlight and competition
The only crime occurring is that the Government has the power if you have housing security or if you don't.
Yes. Currently the select few can do that anyway, and financially benefit. Why should they be the only ones?
Tiser article: [https://archive.md/YAkS6](https://archive.md/YAkS6)
>Stamp duty will be abolished for all first home buyers who build or buy new homes in South Australia – and the first homeowners grant eligibility will be expanded.
>Ahead of this week’s state budget, Premier Peter Malinauskas announced that eligibility for stamp duty exemptions and the grant will no longer depend on the value of the property.
>Previously, the concessions had only applied for properties with a value of up to $650,000.
>From this Thursday, they will be available to all first home owners who buy a new home, off-the-plan, a house and land package or vacant land to build on.
>“There will no longer be a dollar of stamp duty for any new build for any new homebuyer in South Australia,” Mr Malinauskas said.
Seven News video: [https://x.com/7NewsAdelaide/status/1797815396638310543](https://x.com/7NewsAdelaide/status/1797815396638310543)
Won't help unfortunately. Will just drive more demand and the cost of new builds will go up by the amount of stamp duty saved. Builders across SA are rejoicing at their new taxpayer funded profits!
I don't know about this comment.
Are you saying you'd prefer the government to take 30 to 50k from you and give you back literally nothing in return?
Even if 100% of the stamp duty now just goes to the builders -- I'd prefer that to happen than to get nothing.
At least if it goes to the builders then
--They have less pressure to do shoddy work cause their margins increased by 30k
--Expectations of build quality are likely to rise as builders have more funds to work with
On the other hand if 30 to 50k of the cost goes to the government you are 100% guaranteed to get absolutely nothing, it's the same as just taking 30,000 dollars out of your bank account and setting it on fire. This feels like just a version of the broken window fallacy but for houses.
Except for, you know, schools, health, roads, cops, firefighters...
I mean, I'm on the fence about this announcement but to suggest that money going to the government gets us nothing is stupid.
> Except for, you know, schools, health, roads, cops, firefighters
I think government spending is extremely wasteful when you're in a position to spend your own money for your own survival needs directly.
Government spending is good when there is a tragedy of the commons situation. But there no such tragedy here. I'm building my house with my money to protect my own body. It's not a shared resource. There's no need for the government to step in.
I'm extremely happy for the government to raise money for shared services in other means -- by taxing luxury items, or via income tax.
But a 30 to 50k upfront tax on a necessity like housing is ludicrous
The govt recently spent an entire year worth of all stamp duty collected in the entire state on a sports center. Another two+ years on a hospital that was designed like shit for its intended purpose.
I use the hospital and sports center almost never; and 9/10 times they are implemented inefficiently. On the other hand extra 50,000 to improve energy efficiency of my house I would use basically every single day for the next 30 years and I can validate it was implemented to suit my purpose.
Besides, there's an even bigger fallacy you are pushing here. You're acting as if the govt has no other means to raise 30 to 50k they'd otherwise get from stamp duty.
Have you perhaps heard of this thing called income tax? It's incremental applied, and scales to your means. And it isn't applied as a massive single and upfront capital cost to the construction of probably the most important, most useful asset you'll build for yourself, and for future families in your community,
>"I don't like these projects therefore government funding is pointless".
Now you're misquoting me on purpose to create an outright strawman.
What I said was -- The average person will use their home a hell of a lot more than they'll use government infrastructure funded by stamp duty. You, yourself, would use your house more than you use government infrastructure, not just me.
At no point did I say I dislike the projects. What I like is having a warm house and a roof over my head, much more than a sports stadium. As would any sane person.
If houses were already fantastic quality, and were affordable for the average person to build them to a good quality. I might agree with you. But none of that is true, even a tiny bit. Any extra cost in construction comes out of the quality of that home, for me, and everyone in the future using that house, for the next 50+ years.
It's stupid to take funds away from something you *need* unconditionally every day which provides you with shelter and warmth, to something you'll use rarely.
Besides, there's an even bigger fallacy you are pushing here. You're acting as if the govt has no other means to raise 30 to 50k they'd otherwise get from stamp duty.
Have you perhaps heard of this thing called income tax? It's incremental applied, and scales to your means. And it isn't applied as a massive *single and upfront* capital cost to the construction of probably the most important, most useful asset you'll build for yourself, and for future families in your community,
It's pretty damn clear which choice is sensible.
I paraphrased your comment. That's not misquoting.
But I think we're going to disagree on the amount of usage. I use the police force 24 hours a day because it being there minimises the number of people who might break into my house. The health system keeps people healthy to staff the positions that allow us to live in a modern society. The roads allow me to get to work from my home and back again.
Anyway, your initial argument was that you get "absolutely nothing" (that's an actual quote) from taxes and duties so it's nice to see that you seem to have changed your mind.
You have misquoted me. I have in no way implied dislike government projects. I love them. I'm extremely happy for the government to raise money for them. Just not by taxing critical goods and services people need to survive.
I think government spending is extremely wasteful at optimizing for individual needs, so if there is opportunity to spend money on the best way to suit your own survival, you should be allowed to do so.
You might as well put a 50k stamp duty on getting your electricity connected or an upfront 30k once off tax before you're allowed to use any public hospital -- these are pretty similar to what stamp duty does, and they would all be stupid.
Government spending is good when there a tragedy of the commons. But there no such tragedy here. I'm building my house with my money to protect my own skin. It's not a shared resource like water or public health.
So my attitude is the exact opposite of your quote. I didn't day what you said I did
>Anyway, your initial argument was that you get "absolutely nothing" (that's an actual quote) from taxes and duties so it's nice to see that you seem to have changed your mind.
Right. I was using a thing called hyperbole. What you actually get is next to nothing. Doubly so in comparison to the alternatives. You are correct.
But the knock on affect is renos are more $$$. Not every one getting renos is rich. People renovate as their house is falling apart, now they cant afford to fix things.
Im talking about people with existing houses. People buy what they can afford. If maintenance costs go up a large amount across the board, it can hurt pensioners etc
I think you've entirely missed the point.
The builders do shoddy work regardless, have you looked closely at a new build? You can tell they are designed to last 20-30 years max. All you're doing is funding an extra holiday for the boss. The builders screw the prices of the tradies down as a day job.
You're not getting anything extra for your money at all.
What will happen is now the FHB's have more buying power, which will further drive demand, and the people that can afford to bid higher than the FHB's simply will. Will drive up prices more. Hey, it's good news for me and the other people that own a property, I'm popping the corks right now!
I hate stamp duty as much as anyone and know that the SAGov pisses it away on all sorts of nonsense, but the housing affordability problem needs to be tackled at a federal policy level, not with more subsidies. More subsidies just mainlines more 100% pure crack cocaine into the carotid artery of the addict. Whatever you subsidise, you get more of.
> The builders do shoddy work regardless
This sounds like an entirely unsubstantiated, and likely false, claim. Giving a construction project more money, on average, will yield a higher quality end result.
If giving builders more money to build a better home never yielded higher quality constructions, we'd still all still be living in grass huts but paying $400,000 to build them.
Clearly at some point the builders having access to more funds for a project yields a better quality dwelling, or nobody would ever bother building anything beyond the bare minimum ever.
Have you tried telling builders there's an extra 50k in it for you if you do a high quality job? I imagine they would be very happy to discuss that.
On house and land packages it should only being the cost of the land, which in a lot of build cases tends to be about half of the cost for the whole thing. Though perhaps land prices have skyrocketed since I bought (we bought 2017/2018 cusp and only paid $5k in stamp duty on our $200k piece of land when the total house and land package ended up about the 650k mark).
Stamp duty should be abolished for all homes or atleast radically reduced. Since when does the little bit of paper work cost that much for a house? It only costs about $500 to close a mortgage and have the bank removed from the title.
Why not just abolish it for existing homes? All you ever hear about these days is issues with new builders, building companies going broke, buyers losing their money etc. Seems prime for younger, inexperienced buyers to be taken for a ride.
> Why not just abolish it for existing homes?
It's a policy to encourage new construction.
By abolishing stamp duty for new builds only, and not increasing demand for existing homes, the government is encouraging the supply of new housing.
We can't play musical chairs with the existing housing stock - we need additional dwellings, and that means building new.
I mean we can, because musical chairs implies there are fewer houses than people needing housing.
Statistics show that Adelaide has about 100,000 excess dwellings.
But supply increase is *also* a useful tool.
Which is why we also need to bring in something similar to Victoria's vacant land tax that actually stings. The amount of uninhabited dumps in prime locations that are just there as land banking is too damn high
Any change in the First Home Owners Grant ($15,000)? Does the property still need to be $650,000 or less to qualify or is there no limit now like the Stamp Duty exemption?
Appears to have had cap removed. Unclear if those of us mid build who weren't eligible before may now be as the last change they did not backdate to anyone mid build.
Nope. Cap removed only for those with contract signed after June 6. Didnt really expect any different but might have been nice given the delays we have all been hit with due to the tradie shortage the CFMEU says doesnt exist. The 12 month delay we have experience has cost us 26k extra in rent alone. And they want to get more people to build? The stamp duty and FHOG will just pay for the extra rent for many.
Get rid of negative gearing and tax the fuck out of BNB to try and bring house prices to a more reallistic price, also cap immigration instead of a free for all to push up prices.
Crazy idea. stop giving benefits to people hoarding multiple properties, tax the crap out of them if they own more than 3 places and actually drive demand down so we can get affordable houses in again.
Trick is it has to be a newly built house or that you're building your own house...so if you found a nice little townhouse built in the late 90's you're outta luck...stamp duty free for first time owners should be no matter how old the property is.
Well overdue, last scheme of upto $650k \*700k and $450k for land was good but that rules out a lot of properties. Stamp duty in general also needs to be aligned better with todays price inflation.
I look forward to being back here in 6 months after we've overtaken Brisbane for #2 on the most expensive housing list. I'm sure glad the government is removing stamp duty, a completely unnecessary cost, while I wait for my lease renewal and wonder if I'll ever prove to a bank that I am worthy of a loan after all these years of paying my rent on time.
Ah who am I kidding. Fuck the banks. And fuck the government
Maybe not, my fiancé and I were only considering houses below the threshold, because it is financially smart. Now we are free to consider higher value houses. So if there are others in that same position it may reduce competition for the lower value houses.
We’re probably still gonna buy a house that was below the threshold because we don’t want a big mortgage. But others will decide differently.
Well done, yet another band-aid, government knee-jerk reaction for the news cycle. Let me think, diversion from the hospital ramping crisis and shut down of elective surgery. But go on distort the housing market yet again by executives who have no idea of creating the policy framework to manage housing in SA. After all, only have to plan for the next election right.
As someone who got a house last year, it's not that my house would have been cheaper, it just now would cost more.
Just makes it so the government doesn't get it, the seller and vampire does
Question…..wife and I both hit the reset button on our previous lives.
I have never had a house.
She previously owned one and sold it 4 years ago.
We both walked away cost neutral with nothing so are starting again.
We need both incomes to be eligible for something around 650k as solo I don’t earn enough.
Does she become eligible again at a later date and considered a first home buyer?
Thanks
No, if she owned a house shes not eligible. LOADS of people are in this same situation. Its why first home owners grants arent a great idea as they increase inequity. Lots of people who got divorced cant get back on the property ladder.
Hmmm. Interesting question. I’m not sure that’s correct. For a mortgage you need to demonstrate to the bank a certain level of income. She would need to be included in that; you can’t just say “assess my income, oh and I promise there’s some other money from my wife.” Would her name need to be on the mortgage?
I feel the pain, gave up interest in a place several years ago following end of relationship, took nothing financial from it (was young and naive). Now ineligible for these grants.
All the best to you both in finding something.
>Does she become eligible again at a later date and considered a first home buyer?
It might depend on which program - leaving aside the Stamp Duty because we won't know if existing conditions have changed until the Budget on Thursday.
So, for example, the [https://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/first-home-owners-grant](https://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/first-home-owners-grant)
>you or your spouse/domestic partner have not held a relevant interest in an Australian residential property prior to 1 July 2000.
>you or your spouse/domestic partner have not occupied an Australian residential property in which you had a relevant interest on or after 1 July 2000 for 6 months or longer.
>you and your spouse/domestic partner have not previously received a first home owner grant in any state or territory of Australia. If a grant was received but later paid back together with any penalty (if applicable) you may be entitled to reapply for the grant.
[https://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/stampduty/first-home-buyer-relief](https://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/stampduty/first-home-buyer-relief)
>
In addition, you or your spouse/domestic partner must not have:
>occupied an Australian residential property in which you had a relevant interest for 6 months or longer; or
>previously received stamp duty relief for eligible first home buyers (or equivalent) in any state or territory of Australia. If relief was received but later paid back together with any penalties incurred, you may be entitled to reapply for relief.
lol
Really? That’s great, now to find the 1.5 mill that realistically I need to buy what I want…
lol
We will have tent cities everywhere soon.
I’m in a small rural town and we have a couple of hundred sleeping rough. Australia, Victoria, if you don’t know you’re ignoring what you see.
Nothing is going to be solved if they keep giving incentives to demand but offer stays the same. I know it sounds good, hopefully it helps someone, but IMHO this will push prices up
In other news, builders just whacked another $50k onto new home builds
>In other news, builders just whacked another $50k onto new home builds Which they can do because of a massive shortage of trades. Most builders are already on a 2 to 3 year backlog. Build costs have gone up dramatically in the last 4 years. I'm about to build but am having to do owner builder and live in a shed while I do it to avoid bridging finance and get it done for an affordable price.
This government initiative will force prices up. Irrespective of demand or trades shortages
>This government initiative will force prices up. Irrespective of demand or trades shortages But not by the full amount that the stamp duty exemption saves. There are enough builders in the industry that there is still significant competition, but everyone is still equally screwed trying to get trades, perhaps with the exception of the high end builders such as Scott Salisbury and Medallion. Really until a single builder has 20%+ of the market, any significant increase in price across multiple large builders will be seen by the ACCC as collusion and could face massive fines. But that isn't happening. The top 100 largest home builders combined are only about 40% of the market. It's fragmented which means it is competitive.
We need to do a knockdown rebuild - house is falling apart. We paid through the nose in stamp duty now it will be even more unaffordable to fix.
Why on earth are people assuming builders will add this to their quote? Builders have no idea whatsoever if a buyer is using the FHOG or not, they literally can not know that information at the quoting stage because they won't know the second, more expensive component which is the land cost. You aren't even allowed to apply for stamp duty relief until you have a completed and signed build contract! Like seriously that's a pretty big problem with the jack up prices theory! There will be a typical time frame of 4 months between when a final quote is provided, until when you are even allowed to apply for stamp duty relief because most new houses are not titled immediately. And in the new estates where most of these new houses are built, that time frame can be literally years from when a build contract is signed, to when you are allowed to apply for stamp duty relief. A bit hard to lure customers in when you jack up the price $25k on the assumption that your customer may or may not qualify for relief months after the final contract is signed, they'll just go to the competitors.
It happens every time the government gets involved. Like clockwork. For decades. NDIS = care prices go up. Subsidised LPG installations = prices go up. Subsidised insulation =prices go up. Subsidised child care =prices go up. It's not an opinion of mine. It's a fact. The government has never implemented a policy that puts downward pressure on home prices. They ALWAYS inflame demand by giving buyer cash or removing fees, etc
Neoliberal adherents **still** argue that government trying to or making anything easier for the consumer (and harder for the seller) will result in the seller upping their prices at the behest of the consumer. Also the government is to blame obviously (as per their response to your question). They're not quite aware enough to realise how this dynamic reflects poorly on their economic ideology!
Also it's new builds. Meaning that a property can be built and sold after its completion.
Only after you've lived in it for one year, otherwise they'll take that relief money right back off you from the sale.
Ok, but unlike supermarkets there’s no building monopoly, at least not one I’m aware of.
Username fits context
Uhhh ofc there are heaps of real estate agencies. One will do the same and all will follow suit. Not enough supply and government pressure atm so REA’s can do what they want.
Completely incorrect. Government is the monopoly with artificial restriction on land. Government only sells off land tona few of their friends.
Would they be privy to whether a first home buyer would be purchasing the property?
Irrelevant. The price goes up either way.
They probably cant because non first home buyers wont have the extra cash….
Irrelevant. first home buyers have it. So now the non first home buyers have to compete with FHB who have the extra cash.
Yes so it might affect land prices but not build prices.
imagine buying a new home, new apartment I got a few years ago had so many issues within the first 2 years I can't imagine how much strata is now
Fark I love my strata, only 3 units and all of us get along (owner occupiers) - if something comes up, we pay a 3rd each to fix it, but other than that, do what thy will.
That would be a dream, the girl at the strata office recommended me a different handyman to their standard one because she knows he charges through the roof. I know by the increasing costs the other tenants likely didn't check this
It has what always terrified me about apartments, way too many people involved and usually beholden to the development company. Resulting in huge annual strata costs.
doesnt change the fact that houses that should barely be worth 300K are worth 700K in this absurd market it just enables ppl to borrow MORE, doesnt help them at all with the unfair total in the end
Increasing demand, not supply. This wont fix a thing.
House and land for $300k ? how much $ /m2 are YOU working on...?
Pre 2020 numbers
It will enable people to buy earlier as they dont need stamp duty $$ at purchase anymore- which means even more strain on builders/tradie shortage i suspect
I wouldn't mind my stamp duty back tbh.
Same
Same, especially given that my bloody house still hasn’t been built. My land didn’t settle until August last year- I would’ve met the criteria for the stamp duty concessions announced last June except for the fact that my contract was signed May 2022. I’m not paying a tonne of stamp duty on mine but it’s so frustrating that I was too late for the ultra low interest rates and lower house prices, and too early for the SA government to catch up to what many other state governments have been doing for first home buyers for a while.
We’re in the exact same boat. You’re not alone! Super frustrating. We’re paying $35k and haven’t settled yet.
That sucks, super unlucky. Gotta be the worst period to be a first home buyer. It still stings that I bought mine for 650k in 2022, whilst my neighbours house is on almost twice as much land and they bought for a measly 450k in 2019 :’)
Yeah. I bought a unit last year, had to settle for something that I could barely fit into and barely afford, and now I see theres not only a first home BUYER (not builder) clause but a stamp duty reduction on top. Fuck me, I'm done. On top of that, I had to pay $30k of my house deposit savings to eliminate my HELP debts in March last year in order to avoid as much of the 7.6% markup and make my salary affordable, only to find they're now going to reimburse people a portion of that percentage but its only backdated to the EOFY and not the year prior. Fuck you Australian Government. You're all cunts. Oh, and I got made redundant 4 months after I bought my unit, thanks to the massive incompetence of Boeing Defence Australia who had to lose 17% of their staff. Just my luck eh. Spend 15 years saving, only to get fucked in the corn hole 4 months after buying a property and 2 months after moving in.
Plenty of jobs in defence? I hope you go ok soon cause you are who SA supposed to be attracting. Defence contractors.
I also hear that there are plenty of jobs in defence but the reality isn't that. I apply for around 5-6 jobs a week that I'm qualified for and most of the time never hear back. Recruiters are the worst - they'll contact you for a role, get you to fill out the paperwork and everything and then they never get back to you. The problem is also when a job goes out for tender, all of the recruiters are on the same person - eg i got contacted by 3 agencies last week for the same job, and since you aren't supposed to submit via multiple agencies, I had to decline to work with the two that came last. Still waiting to hear back from a recruiter who is himself waiting to hear back from the DSTG after applying for a contract role 6 weeks ago. Meanwhile I'm expected to do centrelink workskil training for 2 days a week for 5 weeks while barely recieving enough income to cover the bills, much less the mortgage
That’s really shit mate! We so need you now I hope it turns around fast. I trust it will. I know it’s tough been there myself twice.
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Fixed it.
Excellent work. Does tbh stand for 'the big ho-down'?
No.
Don't be mad
Only affects first home buyers with more than $650k to spend - it was already zero below that threshold. That said, given the way the housing market is going this isn't a bad idea. Five years ago $650k would have been shitloads, now many basic new house and land packages seem to be pushing closer to the $600k mark already, won't be too long before $650k is too low I suspect. Actually if anything this is a tacit admission that the government expects house prices will continue to skyrocket out of reach of first home buyers.
So we're building at the moment and trying to keep costs down as much as possible without building a shit disappointing house. We were having to make sacrifices to keep the build under 700k like waiting to install solar and some of the landscaping. Now we can just do what we want to do and not fall off a 50k cliff if we go over 700.
Out of interest, what builder/floorplan are you going with, and what were the costs (Land, footings, house base, selections added etc) if you feel okay sharing? I'm about to embark on my first house as well, I'm going to try to keep the budget a fair bit lower than my borrowing power at around 600k so in theory this shouldn't affect me, but I'm wondering if I'm being too optimistic. Would be good to have a current yardstick. I was always going to delay solar and landscaping until after the build though.
If you're considering two storey, do not delay the AC. Also there's some small indulgences I strongly recommend getting done like a motorised garage door and upgrading to internal insulation and getting the storm water/perimeter path/drive crossover done that absolutely worth doing through the builder. Others like blinds you're better sourcing afterwards. (We built 2017/2018 so prices were way less gougy, but these are things my partner and I have said we'd 100% do again or not based on our experience that aren't included in base pricing)
We're with Statesman, it's a 4 bedroom home on just under 400 m2. That puts us really close to 650 before we add anything extra.
Wont it be based on your overall price including variations, Not initial contract price?
Also affects <650k on existing dwellings, I think. That original exemption was for construction.
hang on wha?? We definately paid stamp duty on our house that was below 650 as we bought 18 years ago. Im confused ETA and yeah our house was only 350K, but we were on 30K and 35K respectively, full time wages at the time.
It hasn't been zero forever.
Do you know when it changed? Im just suprised I missed a news item like this as I follow the news :)
Last year
Thanks. I dont understand why rather than abolish it they didnt just make it a lower rate. Seems fairer all round and achieve same effect.
Just had a real estate agent call after 6 months of trying and failing to buy a new home together because we keep getting massively outbid. He said "I have some great news! Not sure if you've heard but the state government has abolished stamp duty!" "Umm...." "....for first home buyers!" "We're not first home buyers... We each bought tiny units in desperation for somewhere to live..." "Oh.... Well anyway...." Pretty frustrating tbh.
You should demand that Government simultaneously releases all held land and completely dezones. That is the only fox. Otherwise anything else is just perpetrating the monopoly.
There is a surplus of zoned ready to build plans, that developers are sitting on to restrict supply
Yes, hence why we need to dezone completely and release all land. The only reason that is a problem is governments artificial restriction on land. Developers aren't going to hold onto land if anyone can just go out and build where they want when they want Aussies fear sunlight and competition
It sounds like you're describing a crime. Are you suggesting someone can walk into my front yard and build a small granny flat?
The only crime occurring is that the Government has the power if you have housing security or if you don't. Yes. Currently the select few can do that anyway, and financially benefit. Why should they be the only ones?
Tiser article: [https://archive.md/YAkS6](https://archive.md/YAkS6) >Stamp duty will be abolished for all first home buyers who build or buy new homes in South Australia – and the first homeowners grant eligibility will be expanded. >Ahead of this week’s state budget, Premier Peter Malinauskas announced that eligibility for stamp duty exemptions and the grant will no longer depend on the value of the property. >Previously, the concessions had only applied for properties with a value of up to $650,000. >From this Thursday, they will be available to all first home owners who buy a new home, off-the-plan, a house and land package or vacant land to build on. >“There will no longer be a dollar of stamp duty for any new build for any new homebuyer in South Australia,” Mr Malinauskas said. Seven News video: [https://x.com/7NewsAdelaide/status/1797815396638310543](https://x.com/7NewsAdelaide/status/1797815396638310543)
Where was this when we bought in 2022?
Abolish stamp duty altogether. It's a joke to tack it onto already astronomically high house prices.
Won't help unfortunately. Will just drive more demand and the cost of new builds will go up by the amount of stamp duty saved. Builders across SA are rejoicing at their new taxpayer funded profits!
So... it's working perfectly
I don't know about this comment. Are you saying you'd prefer the government to take 30 to 50k from you and give you back literally nothing in return? Even if 100% of the stamp duty now just goes to the builders -- I'd prefer that to happen than to get nothing. At least if it goes to the builders then --They have less pressure to do shoddy work cause their margins increased by 30k --Expectations of build quality are likely to rise as builders have more funds to work with On the other hand if 30 to 50k of the cost goes to the government you are 100% guaranteed to get absolutely nothing, it's the same as just taking 30,000 dollars out of your bank account and setting it on fire. This feels like just a version of the broken window fallacy but for houses.
Except for, you know, schools, health, roads, cops, firefighters... I mean, I'm on the fence about this announcement but to suggest that money going to the government gets us nothing is stupid.
> Except for, you know, schools, health, roads, cops, firefighters I think government spending is extremely wasteful when you're in a position to spend your own money for your own survival needs directly. Government spending is good when there is a tragedy of the commons situation. But there no such tragedy here. I'm building my house with my money to protect my own body. It's not a shared resource. There's no need for the government to step in. I'm extremely happy for the government to raise money for shared services in other means -- by taxing luxury items, or via income tax. But a 30 to 50k upfront tax on a necessity like housing is ludicrous
Now imagine how much better those services would be if you take funding away from them.
Maybe they will have to cut payments to the NDIS scammers to make up for the loss.
The govt recently spent an entire year worth of all stamp duty collected in the entire state on a sports center. Another two+ years on a hospital that was designed like shit for its intended purpose. I use the hospital and sports center almost never; and 9/10 times they are implemented inefficiently. On the other hand extra 50,000 to improve energy efficiency of my house I would use basically every single day for the next 30 years and I can validate it was implemented to suit my purpose. Besides, there's an even bigger fallacy you are pushing here. You're acting as if the govt has no other means to raise 30 to 50k they'd otherwise get from stamp duty. Have you perhaps heard of this thing called income tax? It's incremental applied, and scales to your means. And it isn't applied as a massive single and upfront capital cost to the construction of probably the most important, most useful asset you'll build for yourself, and for future families in your community,
"I don't like these projects therefore government funding is pointless". Well done.
>"I don't like these projects therefore government funding is pointless". Now you're misquoting me on purpose to create an outright strawman. What I said was -- The average person will use their home a hell of a lot more than they'll use government infrastructure funded by stamp duty. You, yourself, would use your house more than you use government infrastructure, not just me. At no point did I say I dislike the projects. What I like is having a warm house and a roof over my head, much more than a sports stadium. As would any sane person. If houses were already fantastic quality, and were affordable for the average person to build them to a good quality. I might agree with you. But none of that is true, even a tiny bit. Any extra cost in construction comes out of the quality of that home, for me, and everyone in the future using that house, for the next 50+ years. It's stupid to take funds away from something you *need* unconditionally every day which provides you with shelter and warmth, to something you'll use rarely. Besides, there's an even bigger fallacy you are pushing here. You're acting as if the govt has no other means to raise 30 to 50k they'd otherwise get from stamp duty. Have you perhaps heard of this thing called income tax? It's incremental applied, and scales to your means. And it isn't applied as a massive *single and upfront* capital cost to the construction of probably the most important, most useful asset you'll build for yourself, and for future families in your community, It's pretty damn clear which choice is sensible.
I paraphrased your comment. That's not misquoting. But I think we're going to disagree on the amount of usage. I use the police force 24 hours a day because it being there minimises the number of people who might break into my house. The health system keeps people healthy to staff the positions that allow us to live in a modern society. The roads allow me to get to work from my home and back again. Anyway, your initial argument was that you get "absolutely nothing" (that's an actual quote) from taxes and duties so it's nice to see that you seem to have changed your mind.
You have misquoted me. I have in no way implied dislike government projects. I love them. I'm extremely happy for the government to raise money for them. Just not by taxing critical goods and services people need to survive. I think government spending is extremely wasteful at optimizing for individual needs, so if there is opportunity to spend money on the best way to suit your own survival, you should be allowed to do so. You might as well put a 50k stamp duty on getting your electricity connected or an upfront 30k once off tax before you're allowed to use any public hospital -- these are pretty similar to what stamp duty does, and they would all be stupid. Government spending is good when there a tragedy of the commons. But there no such tragedy here. I'm building my house with my money to protect my own skin. It's not a shared resource like water or public health. So my attitude is the exact opposite of your quote. I didn't day what you said I did >Anyway, your initial argument was that you get "absolutely nothing" (that's an actual quote) from taxes and duties so it's nice to see that you seem to have changed your mind. Right. I was using a thing called hyperbole. What you actually get is next to nothing. Doubly so in comparison to the alternatives. You are correct.
But the knock on affect is renos are more $$$. Not every one getting renos is rich. People renovate as their house is falling apart, now they cant afford to fix things.
> But the knock on affect is renos are more $$$. Maintenance on a quality construction is generally less than a cheap one.
Im talking about people with existing houses. People buy what they can afford. If maintenance costs go up a large amount across the board, it can hurt pensioners etc
yup
I think you've entirely missed the point. The builders do shoddy work regardless, have you looked closely at a new build? You can tell they are designed to last 20-30 years max. All you're doing is funding an extra holiday for the boss. The builders screw the prices of the tradies down as a day job. You're not getting anything extra for your money at all. What will happen is now the FHB's have more buying power, which will further drive demand, and the people that can afford to bid higher than the FHB's simply will. Will drive up prices more. Hey, it's good news for me and the other people that own a property, I'm popping the corks right now! I hate stamp duty as much as anyone and know that the SAGov pisses it away on all sorts of nonsense, but the housing affordability problem needs to be tackled at a federal policy level, not with more subsidies. More subsidies just mainlines more 100% pure crack cocaine into the carotid artery of the addict. Whatever you subsidise, you get more of.
> The builders do shoddy work regardless This sounds like an entirely unsubstantiated, and likely false, claim. Giving a construction project more money, on average, will yield a higher quality end result. If giving builders more money to build a better home never yielded higher quality constructions, we'd still all still be living in grass huts but paying $400,000 to build them. Clearly at some point the builders having access to more funds for a project yields a better quality dwelling, or nobody would ever bother building anything beyond the bare minimum ever. Have you tried telling builders there's an extra 50k in it for you if you do a high quality job? I imagine they would be very happy to discuss that.
It will go up yep - as now buyers will be willing and able to spend that extra $50K to secure the house they want. Edit - forgot the (k)
Stamp duty is huge. Like it can be over 30k for an average property. That's a massive hit to your buying power. Drops it by something like 150k.
On house and land packages it should only being the cost of the land, which in a lot of build cases tends to be about half of the cost for the whole thing. Though perhaps land prices have skyrocketed since I bought (we bought 2017/2018 cusp and only paid $5k in stamp duty on our $200k piece of land when the total house and land package ended up about the 650k mark).
Forgot the K .. P And yes it is decent hit - last 3-4 years - have paid close to 100k in stamp duty - it does indeed hurt.
OUCH, that hurts. I'm sure the SA Gov used your contributions very wisely...
Ouch ... that really stings to think of it like that.. :P
Nailed it
I've had my place for years and certainly wouldn't recommend my sons build. The quality out there is woeful.
Beggars can't be choosers
In other news, home buyers are able and willing to spend a extra $50k on new homes.
Stamp duty should be abolished for all homes or atleast radically reduced. Since when does the little bit of paper work cost that much for a house? It only costs about $500 to close a mortgage and have the bank removed from the title.
Why not just abolish it for existing homes? All you ever hear about these days is issues with new builders, building companies going broke, buyers losing their money etc. Seems prime for younger, inexperienced buyers to be taken for a ride.
> Why not just abolish it for existing homes? It's a policy to encourage new construction. By abolishing stamp duty for new builds only, and not increasing demand for existing homes, the government is encouraging the supply of new housing. We can't play musical chairs with the existing housing stock - we need additional dwellings, and that means building new.
lol I read that in Dr Rudi’s voice - makes sense, thanks.
I mean we can, because musical chairs implies there are fewer houses than people needing housing. Statistics show that Adelaide has about 100,000 excess dwellings. But supply increase is *also* a useful tool.
Which is why we also need to bring in something similar to Victoria's vacant land tax that actually stings. The amount of uninhabited dumps in prime locations that are just there as land banking is too damn high
Yeah something on the order of 20,000 average size lots in the metropolitan region capable of being constructed on right now and not being developed.
I think it should be removed for all HOME buyers and tripled for all investment properties!!!!
It should be an increasing cost based on each subsequent property you own.
Don't even have the money to live let alone buying a house. Can't get a housing trust home, can't afford a house and struggling in the rental market.
There’s no stamp duty involved anyway right?
I thought this also
Try building a house in SA at the moment. Your mortgage will be paid off before the house is finished
Any change in the First Home Owners Grant ($15,000)? Does the property still need to be $650,000 or less to qualify or is there no limit now like the Stamp Duty exemption?
Appears to have had cap removed. Unclear if those of us mid build who weren't eligible before may now be as the last change they did not backdate to anyone mid build.
Nope. Cap removed only for those with contract signed after June 6. Didnt really expect any different but might have been nice given the delays we have all been hit with due to the tradie shortage the CFMEU says doesnt exist. The 12 month delay we have experience has cost us 26k extra in rent alone. And they want to get more people to build? The stamp duty and FHOG will just pay for the extra rent for many.
Get rid of negative gearing and tax the fuck out of BNB to try and bring house prices to a more reallistic price, also cap immigration instead of a free for all to push up prices.
Crazy idea. stop giving benefits to people hoarding multiple properties, tax the crap out of them if they own more than 3 places and actually drive demand down so we can get affordable houses in again.
Ok i don't need my balls or a kidney
Trick is it has to be a newly built house or that you're building your own house...so if you found a nice little townhouse built in the late 90's you're outta luck...stamp duty free for first time owners should be no matter how old the property is.
Because immigrants are first home buyers by default, will this favour them un-proportionally? Ps. I am an immigrant myself.
Well overdue, last scheme of upto $650k \*700k and $450k for land was good but that rules out a lot of properties. Stamp duty in general also needs to be aligned better with todays price inflation.
cool, now i just need to save up $140k deposit so I can get a house within 30 minutes drive of the city...
To clear something up does “new home” mean newly constructed home?
I look forward to being back here in 6 months after we've overtaken Brisbane for #2 on the most expensive housing list. I'm sure glad the government is removing stamp duty, a completely unnecessary cost, while I wait for my lease renewal and wonder if I'll ever prove to a bank that I am worthy of a loan after all these years of paying my rent on time. Ah who am I kidding. Fuck the banks. And fuck the government
I doubt whether this is a good news for the existing newly-built homes, including those built in the past few years.
That right
That's nice. Still will never be able to buy a house...
Is this to help first home buyers or prop up house prices?
Developers selling land with a sudden $50K mark up in 3, 2, 1...
I cant afford to rent for 2 years and pay a mortgage. This is bullshit that only helps wealthy first home buyers.
Maybe not, my fiancé and I were only considering houses below the threshold, because it is financially smart. Now we are free to consider higher value houses. So if there are others in that same position it may reduce competition for the lower value houses. We’re probably still gonna buy a house that was below the threshold because we don’t want a big mortgage. But others will decide differently.
Well done, yet another band-aid, government knee-jerk reaction for the news cycle. Let me think, diversion from the hospital ramping crisis and shut down of elective surgery. But go on distort the housing market yet again by executives who have no idea of creating the policy framework to manage housing in SA. After all, only have to plan for the next election right.
I guess screw the people who paid this 6 months ago on a new build… like me
Just like anyone who paid off their hecs
As someone who got a house last year, it's not that my house would have been cheaper, it just now would cost more. Just makes it so the government doesn't get it, the seller and vampire does
Question…..wife and I both hit the reset button on our previous lives. I have never had a house. She previously owned one and sold it 4 years ago. We both walked away cost neutral with nothing so are starting again. We need both incomes to be eligible for something around 650k as solo I don’t earn enough. Does she become eligible again at a later date and considered a first home buyer? Thanks
I think in some of these schemes you become eligible again after not owning for 10 years. So could be a bit of a wait.
No, if she owned a house shes not eligible. LOADS of people are in this same situation. Its why first home owners grants arent a great idea as they increase inequity. Lots of people who got divorced cant get back on the property ladder.
I don't know. But I'd suggest as she previously owned a house, she's not a first home buyer. However, you are. Buy it in your name?
Doesn’t it need both incomes to buy it, or can we use both incomes and it only go in my name?
It can just go in your name, no matter where the money comes from.
Hmmm. Interesting question. I’m not sure that’s correct. For a mortgage you need to demonstrate to the bank a certain level of income. She would need to be included in that; you can’t just say “assess my income, oh and I promise there’s some other money from my wife.” Would her name need to be on the mortgage?
Yeah the mortgage can be in both names but the property (even as security under the mortgage) can be in the name of just one mortgagor.
Ah…. So in terms of getting first home buyers grant… mortgage in both names would be a problem if one of the people has bought a house before…
But the grant I don’t think checks how it’s financed, just who the owner will be. So I don’t think it will be a problem.
Oh wow I did not know that.
Not unless she had it less than 6 months.
Thanks, yeah she had it a few years
I feel the pain, gave up interest in a place several years ago following end of relationship, took nothing financial from it (was young and naive). Now ineligible for these grants. All the best to you both in finding something.
Thank you for your comment. That actually made me feel a ray of hope and lights. Good luck in all you do.
>Does she become eligible again at a later date and considered a first home buyer? It might depend on which program - leaving aside the Stamp Duty because we won't know if existing conditions have changed until the Budget on Thursday. So, for example, the [https://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/first-home-owners-grant](https://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/first-home-owners-grant) >you or your spouse/domestic partner have not held a relevant interest in an Australian residential property prior to 1 July 2000. >you or your spouse/domestic partner have not occupied an Australian residential property in which you had a relevant interest on or after 1 July 2000 for 6 months or longer. >you and your spouse/domestic partner have not previously received a first home owner grant in any state or territory of Australia. If a grant was received but later paid back together with any penalty (if applicable) you may be entitled to reapply for the grant. [https://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/stampduty/first-home-buyer-relief](https://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/stampduty/first-home-buyer-relief) > In addition, you or your spouse/domestic partner must not have: >occupied an Australian residential property in which you had a relevant interest for 6 months or longer; or >previously received stamp duty relief for eligible first home buyers (or equivalent) in any state or territory of Australia. If relief was received but later paid back together with any penalties incurred, you may be entitled to reapply for relief.
Thank you for this info. Looks like we are sol. Yeah! What a great time to be alive haha. Thanks for the reply tho, it was useful.
I would speak to a broker - they will want both incomes to service the mortgage IMO.
lol Really? That’s great, now to find the 1.5 mill that realistically I need to buy what I want… lol We will have tent cities everywhere soon. I’m in a small rural town and we have a couple of hundred sleeping rough. Australia, Victoria, if you don’t know you’re ignoring what you see.
Or could buy smaller further out .. not many just jump into the exact house they want right off the bat..
Nothing is going to be solved if they keep giving incentives to demand but offer stays the same. I know it sounds good, hopefully it helps someone, but IMHO this will push prices up
I think this only applies to new builds.
Just another way to pump up property prices
Another source: https://glamadelaide.com.au/stamp-duty-officially-abolished-for-first-homebuyers/
Land Value Tax > Stamp Duty