{"id":37573,"date":"2026-02-21T19:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T08:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=37573"},"modified":"2026-02-21T19:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T08:13:09","slug":"housing-now-an-investors-playground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/02\/21\/housing-now-an-investors-playground\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing now an investor\u2019s playground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acoss.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ACOSS-Briefing-Note-Curb-Tax-Breaks.-Build-Social-Homes.-Fix-Housing-Affordability.-February-2026.pdf\">New analysis today by ACOSS<\/a>&nbsp;shows property investors are buying almost twice as many homes as first-home buyers, thanks to government tax breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The analysis shows that the average property investor loan is around $100,000 larger than the average loan taken out by a first-home buyer, which guarantees investors a leg up at auctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Greens say Labor\u2019s tax breaks are directly responsible for investor advantage and have effectively created an investor playground that leaves first-home buyers behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Greens spokesperson for finance, housing and homelessness Senator Barbara Pocock:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAustralia\u2019s housing market has become an investor\u2019s playground.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEvery time you crunch the numbers it gets worse and worse and that\u2019s because of Labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s no wonder that property investors bought twice as many homes as first-home buyers in the most recent December 2025 quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLabor\u2019s tax breaks are directly responsible for investor advantage, giving first-home buyers no chance at auctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s shameful that in the midst of a housing crisis, property investors get to treat the housing market like a game of monopoly, while first-home buyers and renters sigh in disbelief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe CGT discount and negative gearing are pushing up house prices, leaving renters and first-home buyers behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLabor cares more about rewarding property investors with tax breaks than it does about building good quality homes at prices people can actually afford to rent or buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe government must scrap the tax breaks for wealthy property investors. Labor has an opportunity to fix the housing crisis \u2014 but if they keep dodging real reform, they\u2019ll lock a whole generation out of ever owning a home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New analysis today by ACOSS&nbsp;shows property investors are buying almost twice as many homes as first-home buyers, thanks to government tax breaks. The analysis shows that the average property investor loan is around $100,000 larger than the average loan taken out by a first-home buyer, which guarantees investors a leg up at auctions. The Greens &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/02\/21\/housing-now-an-investors-playground\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Housing now an investor\u2019s playground&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37574,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37573\/revisions\/37574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}