New Government Housing Scheme - Does It Create Affordable Housing?

Written by: Ned K. on 1 December 2024

(Image: www,express.co.uk)

On Thursday 28 November 2024 the Albanese Government's Housing Scheme, to be known as the "Help To Buy Scheme" passed through the Senate. 

Without even reading the fine print, it appears to be providing both hope and depression for people desperate to buy their own homes.

The Scheme provides a government financed "equity contribution" of up to 40% of the cost of purchasing a newly built house and up to 30% of the cost of purchasing an existing house put up for sale.

A potential home buyer needs to have a minimum 2% of the price of the house as a deposit.

The home buyer does not have to pay rent on the government owned equity contribution towards the purchase price of the house.

The Scheme will run for 4 years and be available for up to 40,000 eligible low- and middle-income earners. What happens at the end of the 4 years is a case of "your guess is as good as mine".

To be eligible for the Scheme, an individual potential buyer must have income of no more than $90,000 per year. For a couple as potential buyer, their combined income must be no more than $120,000 per year.

If the new home buyer sells the house, the Scheme enables the federal Government to hold a 30% on the property. This means that 30% of the proceeds of sale would go to the Government.

A home buyer under this new "Help To Buy Scheme" will be able to buy back the Government's equity on the house after the first 2 years of occupancy by the home buyer. 

The risks for people participating in the Scheme are higher if house prices drop, or if interest rates rise or if the new home buyers' income declines due to insecure work and insecure income levels.

The new Scheme may enable more people to scrape enough money together for the initial purchase of a house which they would not otherwise have. Once having purchased the house, they will be like all other middle- and low-income home buyers who battle to pay the house off as well as all the other aspects of the rising costs of living under capitalism.

Whether working people try to rent or buy, they are always faced with years of housing insecurity, The fundamental cause of this is that the whole housing industry from the design of a building to its completion is based on building and maintaining housing for profit.

Only under socialism will housing of people be affordable and a basic human right rather than a way of capitalists in all the components that make up the housing industry making profit. 

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