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Convincing Australians to embrace reverse mortgages – where the bank pays them money instead of the other way round – could be the key to reducing the huge cost of the age pension, experts say.
The local reverse mortgage market, where the St George, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and Bankwest were the biggest providers, all but collapsed in the global financial crisis seven years ago and only a handful of the financial products are available from the major banks.
Read more: Reverse mortgage the solution to the huge cost of the age pension?
Stamp duty should be scrapped, with the loss in state governments' revenue recouped from an increase in the goods and services tax, the Property Council of Australia has proposed.
In its submission to the federal government's tax white paper reform process, the council argues stamp duty is inefficient and nothing more than "a runaway cash grab that's hurting Australia's economy and locking out potential home buyers".
It has released figures showing the cost of stamp duty to a home buyer with an average-sized mortgage has increased by 795 per cent in Melbourne and 749 per cent in Sydney during the past 20 years.
"The community should be outraged that they are being slugged with such excessive charges, especially at a time when housing affordability is an acute challenge," the council's chief executive, Ken Morrison, said.
Call it the reverse of the great Australian dream. Soaring property prices are creating a nation of young landlords who live the new Australian dream of investing in property before they purchase their own homes.
Fresh figures from Martin North's Digital Finance Analytics, released on Friday, show more than half of first home buyers in NSW and one in three first home buyers in Victoria are investors.
It is expected for the first time that more first time buyers are will be investors, rather than owner-occupiers by the end of this year.
Read More in Financial Review
The federal ALP is considering adopting proposal that would limit negative gearing to new properties only. Negative gearing: Labor preparing ground for changes as think tank proposal estimates $29.3b saving
Labor is considering a proposal to limit home buyers' use of negative gearing to new properties only, in a move designed to drive the creation of new housing and deliver a $29.3 billion benefit to the budget bottom line over a decade. The proposal is contained in a policy paper by the Labor-aligned McKell Institute and is being released on Thursday as the ALP signals a willingness to reform negative gearing if it wins the next election and as the government is under pressure over property prices.
Read more: Proposed limited use of negative gearing to new properties only
Fears of further stoking house price inflation in Australia's big cities has made the RBA reluctant to cut the cash rate again, despite persistent sluggishness in the Australian economy.
Mr Stevens said he found the steep rises in property prices in Australia's biggest city "acutely concerning for a host of reasons, many of which are not to do with monetary policy".
Earlier in his speech, Mr Stevens signalled that the Reserve Bank remained open to a third interest rate cut his year, but also flagged serious doubts over its efficacy in anything but further pushing up household debt and property prices.
"Yes, I am concerned about Sydney. I think some of what's happening is crazy" RBA governor Glenn Stevens