Introduction of a Nationwide Vacancy Tax/Ghost Homes - Yay or Nay?

Goliegosh on 13/05/2025 - 13:36
Last edited 13/05/2025 - 13:37

As someone who is looking to purchase their first-home (currently renting), I’m baffled that so many homes across Australia are empty and not on the market for rent/purchase.

According to the ABS, over 1 million dwellings were unoccupied on Census night 2021. To me, a massive waste of housing, especially as affordability plummets and renting continues to be a brutal application fight for most people.

Would there be better solutions?

As I am someone who believes Yes it should be applied nationwide, I’ll be writing to my local MP to ask what their thoughts are on vacancy taxes and housing supply in general.

Poll Options

  • 584
    Yes – it should apply nationwide to all vacant homes.
  • 194
    No – property owners should have full discretion.
  • 43
    Maybe – more information is needed.
  • 6
    Not sure/I don’t care.
Financial

Comments

        • Protractor on 14/05/2025 - 09:37

          Start date 60,000 years ago, and I'll back your self interest.

        • Crow K on 14/05/2025 - 15:16

          You demonstrate my point perfectly. As the owner of the property they should be able to do those things, as they own the property.

          Old Man Yells at Cloud territory, we have landlord and tenancy rules for reasons, regardless of whether you know or understand those reasons.

          You might as well kick off about "it's MY business and I'll treat my staff however I want" while you're taking an incorrect, simplistic view.

        • Muppet Detector on 20/05/2025 - 14:07

          You demonstrate my point perfectly. As the owner of the property they should be able to do those things, as they own the property.

          I have IPs but I disagree with this.

          When you decide to invest in property, you lose certain rights.

    • AustriaBargain on 14/05/2025 - 15:18

      Just sell the house then and invest in stocks and bonds which will outperform the housing investment bubble. Warren Buffet says he bought his home for 13k in the 20th century and it's now worth millions, but if he bought shares instead that 13k would have increased a lot more.

  • tsunamisurfer on 13/05/2025 - 15:35
    +11

    No absolutely not.

    An owner has worked hard to own the home, he should be able to do whatever he wants with it (within the law). Leaving it vacant is as harmless as you can get.

    He should have no obligation to provide housing to himself or others.

    • fantombloo on 13/05/2025 - 15:45
      +4

      An owner has worked hard to own the home

      Sometimes, not always. See the first 1 minute of this

      • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 22:22

        worked hard? The faux version of Dutton's rise to failure

    • tenpercent on 13/05/2025 - 18:07
      +5

      My neighbour inherited his house from his parents plus two more. He's not a hard worker.

      • derrida derider on 15/05/2025 - 20:27

        No, though his parents were. Stopping people bludging off their parents' hard earned is a good argument for inheritance taxes.

        • tenpercent on 16/05/2025 - 10:52

          I was only pointing out that not all property owners earned it from hard work.

        • Muppet Detector on 20/05/2025 - 14:08

          But that money has already been taxed?

    • IamHere2 on 13/05/2025 - 18:07

      And, the government has no obligation to provide tax break for the empty home.

      Holiday home owner can list their home on airbnb or similar site at a high rate. And, blocked the holiday season for themselves. So, there home will rent via airbnb only few times a year. And, it become investment property, and they can claim the tax break.

      https://michaelwest.com.au/airbnb-tax-rort-why-is-the-govern…

      • Muppet Detector on 13/05/2025 - 19:55

        How is their tax break assessed?

        • IamHere2 on 13/05/2025 - 21:41

          like any investment property… some people are using airbnb to negative gear their holiday home by only renting out only few times a year via airbnb.

          • Muppet Detector on 13/05/2025 - 21:49
            +1

            @IamHere2: You do know that housing investment is not the only business or investment that is negative geared, right?

            Any business gets to offset their revenue with their losses and even non business owners get to claim tax relief for their expenses on their income and revenue.

            This isn't something only available to those who generate revenue by investing in real estate.

          • Muppet Detector on 13/05/2025 - 21:51

            @IamHere2: And the tax relief for short term accomodation is provided on a pro rata basis. If they're not incurring expenses, there's nothing to claim and their properties aren't negative geared.

            • IamHere2 on 13/05/2025 - 22:10

              @Muppet Detector: @Muppet Detector It's more like gaming the system. Yes, house is available for rent for most of the year. However, house rent is almost double as compare to similar houses. So, house is less likely to get rent out. And, owner can claim the tax deduction.

        • trapper on 14/05/2025 - 11:26

          Tax deduction on for mortgage interest and other expenses.

      • tenpercent on 13/05/2025 - 20:01

        Can you share the full url?

  • CaptainJack on 13/05/2025 - 15:37
    +1

    How many bedrooms do you want in your house and how many people will be living there?

  • DingoBilly on 13/05/2025 - 15:50
    +1

    Yes - many are just shitty investors so (profanity) em.

    Maybe if you had an exemption like for travel Etc., but too many are just sitting on land hoping it grows.

    • Muppet Detector on 13/05/2025 - 19:58
      +2

      And if they achieve any capital gains, they get taxed on that capital gain.

      • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 22:30
        +1

        You would definitely know

        • Muppet Detector on 13/05/2025 - 23:28
          -1

          lol.

          Don't dis the landlord. He's probably employing the gardener who's doing his side hustle gardening stuff whilst he's getting paid to be doing his WFH duties.

  • payless69 on 13/05/2025 - 16:23
    -3

    Nothing of concern. Housing crisis is just another Woke Moan.
    Picture Japan: Has an estimated 20 million empty houses that nobody even wants one for free. Yet in terms of foreign debt they are second to South Sudan slaves to the international finance mafia.
    Today Australia's most valuable listed firm, the CBA has dropped behind 5 ranks of a firm with NO tangible assets at all called Uber.
    ref:
    https://companiesmarketcap.com/

    • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 16:40
      -3

      The word woke died with the potato. 'Yesterdays hero'. Woke word users belong in Trumpland

    • tenpercent on 13/05/2025 - 20:03
      +2

      Today Australia's most valuable listed firm, the CBA has dropped behind 5 ranks of a firm with NO tangible assets at all called Uber.

      Third world imported slave labour is good for business?

      Who would have thought. Slavery is more valuable than creating money out of nothing.

      • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 22:18

        Yep, and you get to keep the cash , leave the mess behind, and get a free ride into paradise.of the salute master>
        Chosen Ones

    • AustriaBargain on 14/05/2025 - 15:19

      Japan well and truly burst their housing investment bubble. Sounds like a good problem to have tbh. Japan has other things to invest in than houses.

      • payless69 on 14/05/2025 - 16:31
        -3

        Nah, nobody wants to live in the country there. No flat land, no work, expensive food.
        Despite negative interest they had ran out of ideas what to do next. No safe room for factories, over-ageing population and a woke youth not willing to have kids anymore. No more safe place to emigrate to as the world got swamped with Chinese migrants who are unwilling to even work with Japanese.
        You can now immigrate to Japan, retire in an old abandoned house if you desire to. Immigrants all swamp Tokyo. Fun in the chaos!

        • AustriaBargain on 14/05/2025 - 16:36

          Sounds good, the renters of Australia can move to Tokyo, and then we can take in 8 million Indians to replace us here. It's win-win.

          • payless69 on 14/05/2025 - 16:42
            -3

            @AustriaBargain: Nah Penny wants her remaining 6 million Palestinians to vote for her. Selling a gender discriminating free life must be a bargain for them? That will get her Voice II over the line!

    • derrida derider on 15/05/2025 - 20:30

      Japan's population is shrinking. That's why they have a lot of empty houses and why property prices have been falling for 30 years.
      Our population is growing. That's why we have few empty houses and property prices have been rising for 30 years. It is simple supply and demand.

  • pharkurnell on 13/05/2025 - 16:26
    +3

    Mate works on Central Coast of NSW, and has a house there.he bought many years ago.
    Hes from Sth Sydney and has a unit there he bought 20+ years ago..

    When he visits Sydney which is most weekends a year he stays in his unit… Both have increased in value x lots
    He worked for what he has, not sure why he should be paying more as he went without a social life for most of that time - something he suffers from badly now

    • Gdsamp on 13/05/2025 - 17:18
      +3

      he went without a social life for most of that time - something he suffers from badly now

      That is a personal choice

    • Parentheses on 14/05/2025 - 07:49

      How great a social life or mental health do you feel homeless people enjoy?

    • ThithLord on 14/05/2025 - 10:20

      Just think how shattered he will be when albo gets the arse at the next election…

      lol

    • AustriaBargain on 14/05/2025 - 15:20

      If he is living in the unit every single week, then it isn't really vacant in the way OP described.

  • apsilon on 13/05/2025 - 16:31
    +3

    Impossible to police so a pointless exercise to even consider it.

    • meowbert on 14/05/2025 - 23:45

      Easy to tell based on energy/water meters

      • apsilon on 15/05/2025 - 05:27

        Not reliable, I'm in credit with power as I produce more than I use and a drip irrigation system will use water or if it came to that just leave a tap running which would be great for all of us during the next drought.

  • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 16:34

    Careful, there's cookers here that don't believe there's ppl sitting on empty homes.
    Yes to a tax, and higher rates

  • brendanm on 13/05/2025 - 16:45
    +5

    Going off census figures is ridiculous. If I want to buy a house and do nothing with it why shouldn't I be able to?

    • mskeggs on 13/05/2025 - 17:35
      +3

      You can. The suggestion is to encourage people to use housing as homes by taxing people.not doing so.
      You already pay plenty of taxes you elect to pay because they suit your lifestyle, this would just be another.
      Or it might prompt you to action to rent out or sell a property if you weren't really keen on keeping it empty, which would be a positive for housing.

      • brendanm on 13/05/2025 - 18:09
        +1

        It's my property, I should be able to not use it if that's what I want to do. Not be taxed into oblivion.

        As someone else already pointed out, the census vacant homes data has been the same for a long time. The actual problem of excess demand is being ignored. Instead they'll just put even more taxes on things.

        • mskeggs on 13/05/2025 - 18:19
          +10

          I think we can probably agree that a person who can afford to leave a house empty for an extended period probably isn’t going to face oblivion if there is an extra tax.

          I agree the impact of this kind of tax would be dramatically lower than the “1 million empty” claims.
          But I also think the housing problem in Australia will need multiple solutions, all at once. I think this includes discouraging leaving houses empty, trimming immigration, encouraging new builds, streamlining planning approvals, improving finance access, changing CGT and negative gearing, boosting community housing, encouraging decentralisation, improving transport and probably a bunch of other initiatives.

          But if every time an idea comes up that won’t solve the whole problem is ignored, then it makes the other initiatives have to do even more of the lifting. And eventually, we keep refusing partial solutions, the remaining options won’t do enough to fix the problem.

          • Muppet Detector on 13/05/2025 - 20:11

            @mskeggs: Why not force other accomodation providers such as multiple room motels/hotels to allocate a percentage of their rooms to long term accomodation that must comply with relevant legislation and be forced to provide them at market rate applicable to long term accomodation?

            Why not force every person who invests their money in any random thing to invest a percentage of their money in the provision of long term rental accomodation or pay a levy towards social housing?

            Got $100,000 to invest in shares/dump in super? Can only do it if you pay 33% towards social housing first.

            Want to invest money that you've already paid tax on? Not gonna let you unless we get to double dip and charge you even more tax on that money.

            • mskeggs on 13/05/2025 - 21:00
              +1

              @Muppet Detector: I think you're getting it.
              The housing problem has got so out of hand we will need to do things like taxes we haven't seen before, changes to zoning, changes to lots of things.

              Our country doesn't have a future without an ability to house our kids, so you will see measures you think are surprising to fix this, or we'll have much bigger problems for decades to come.

          • brendanm on 13/05/2025 - 21:40
            +1

            @mskeggs: As has been stated, often these "vacant" homes can be holiday homes, often nowhere near anything, and not in the city, so 95% of the population doesn't want to live there anyway. Taxing these things is doing nothing, except adding yet another tax.

            Foreigner owned property that is left empty is often in very expensive areas, that 99.5% of the population can't afford. They also don't care about paying the tax as it's not even a blip in their bank account , again not fixing housing at all.

            Too many people, not enough houses. Also not enough doctors, hospitals, schools etc. One of these things is easy to fix, and the obvious issue.

      • gromit on 15/05/2025 - 18:14

        People need to stop with this short sited thinking. Australia has a housing shortage, punishing those with housing just drives investment away from housing at a time when we need to incentivize production of more housing to meet the demand. holiday homes are usually in places that people want holidays, not in the middle of sydney or the suburbs where rental and housing demand is, those overseas people happy to sit on empty houses are sitting on properties that a renter would have to be a multi millionaire already to afford (no objection to taxing these people but it is NOT going to do anything to help the housing issue).

        Doing something around the planning laws, the insane amounts of expensive red tape, land release and providing incentives to actually create housing will do 1000 times more for Australia than some envy taxes to make the less well off feel less bitter.

        • mskeggs on 15/05/2025 - 18:53

          So why not do all those things and tax empty homes?

          • gromit on 15/05/2025 - 20:39

            @mskeggs: I thought the whole point is to get people access to houses, wasting effort doing that while not worthless will do SFA for the actual housing problem. Politicians are useless unfocused imbeciles at the best of times and they wont do all those things, they will do one or two and claim they are doing something, as such you want those somethings to actually be useful.

        • Protractor on 15/05/2025 - 18:57

          We don't need investment in existing housing.We need …………………….h o u s e s.

          • gromit on 15/05/2025 - 20:41
            +1

            @Protractor: You need an environment that is non hostile to investment. Investors that feel under attack just invest elsewhere resulting in even less supply.

            • Protractor on 15/05/2025 - 20:43

              @gromit: To which the homeless would probably say who cares. There is a dearth in supply.That's the priority.If you are lucky enough to choose where to invest, you don't even get the problem facing thousands of your fellow citizens

              • gromit on 15/05/2025 - 20:45
                +2

                @Protractor: You dont seem to get it. Supply is not magic, someone has to build those houses and appartments so those homeless can have a place. We have a massive shortage that wont get better by dicking around punishing the very people that you need to fix it.

                • Protractor on 15/05/2025 - 20:52

                  @gromit: I'm not the one not getting it.Investor is a broad term, and in housing investor is not DEVELOPER. If there was 'money' in BUILDING homes for INVESTORS, WTF are these eager "investors" doing?
                  Hint, snapping up every already existing home with a for sale on it to expand the portfolio.That's the mess the tax haven that politics are too gutless to stop, have created. Fluffing around with bandaids won't level the playing field. Investors want a payday.End of.

                  • gromit on 16/05/2025 - 07:27
                    +2

                    @Protractor: where do you think all these rentals for the homeless are going to come from? Developers don't build for homeless people. We have only a tiny amount of empty homes. Unfortunately too many Australians like you don't think beyond politics of envy and are too gutless to push for actual change to fix this and want to fluff around with bandaids for their hurt feelings rather than actual address the shortage issue. Of course Investors want a payday, you think reducing their payday is going to encourage them to build more houses?

                    Here is the stark reality, if you fix the supply (or the demand) issue then it will actually get what you seem so desperate to achieve in punishing investors anyway as it will reduce price growth. Instead you want to keep the status quo and just screw around with policies that will do nothing for the problem.

                    • Protractor on 16/05/2025 - 09:37
                      -1

                      @gromit: You're good at putting words in my mouth So tata.

  • wetsandwich on 13/05/2025 - 17:09
    +9

    No.

    At what point do we not even own our own property if we can't decide what to do with it? If we're slugged with so many fees, taxes, charges and rates that even though we own it, we still 'rent' it off everyone else who wants our money for free for doing nothing to earn it? And then when no one actually owns anything, oops, we just became communist and still didn't solve any problems..

    If there aren't enough houses, then build more.

    If there are reasons why we can't build more houses, fix those reasons. So maybe that means more skilled labour, lowered construction standards, some other incentives that promote new construction.

    If we can't build more properties no matter what, then fix the reason they are all full or people are homeless (the main reason is the current hyper-immigration, there, I said it).

    If we are called bad names for wanting to reduce immigration, fix that perception.

    Pretty easy chain of events here to fix things but you guys keep voting for political parties who will absolutely never touch it, just make vague promises that they conveniently forget about 1 day after being re-elected.

    Here's the rest of my view - we don't need another million "skilled uber drivers" and "uni students actually here to get PR" from those 2 specific countries, in the currently huge numbers we are getting them. These millions of newcomers all have to live in rooms in dwellings. If less of them come here, maybe our universities earn a little less money, and new dwellings can catch up with the population.

    • mskeggs on 13/05/2025 - 17:39
      +10

      People won't criticise you for making racist posts if you drop the "from those specific countries" line from your comments. Surely a backpacker from Ireland, NZ or Canada takes up as many seats on the train or beds in a house as someone "from those specific countries", so your point would still stand.

      • tenpercent on 13/05/2025 - 18:04
        -2

        Perhaps your comment is racist for assuming which "specific countries" he is carefully not specifying. How do you know he didn't mean Ireland and NZ?

        Tbh, I'm getting sick of the skilled migrant workers and student visa holders undertaking Bachelors of Uber Delivery saying "here ya go cuz" or "top o the morning" when they bring food to my door.

        • mskeggs on 13/05/2025 - 18:09
          +1

          Canadians always getting off scot free

          • tenpercent on 13/05/2025 - 18:11

            @mskeggs: Nah. They're just oot and aboot doing other things.

        • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 20:51

          Are nationalities a race?

        • smartazz104 on 14/05/2025 - 07:28

          How do you know he didn't mean Ireland and NZ?

          Don't be obtuse, we all know these aren't the countries people are referring to when they say "specific countries".

    • Muppet Detector on 13/05/2025 - 20:28
      -2

      I do tend to agree with a lot of what you're saying.

      Tired of people thinking that housing is the responsibility of private people rather than it being a govt responsibility.

      It is NOT MY JOB to provide accomodation for the rest of the population, that responsibility falls on the Govt.

      As for foreign students at uni, generally speaking, for every international student they have, it means they don't need as many local students (when I studied this, it meant 6 less local students for every international student, not sure of right now).

      This means that universities (and schools, cos they also enrol international students) can provide more facilities & programs that a lower population couldn't finance.

      This also impacts any scholarship or bursary offerings as well. For every international student, the education provider can offer financial assistance for 4-6 local enrolments.

      An international student occupies the same space as a local, but their increased contributions improve the quality of the education that provider can offer to local students.

      Limiting international enrolments is akin to defunding the education budget..

      Furthermore, education is one of our highest exports, if you're going to limit or reduce that revenue stream, they really need to replace it with something else, don't they?

      • Parentheses on 14/05/2025 - 07:52
        +6

        that responsibility falls on the Govt

        This idea that the population is separate from the government is dumb as rocks. You ARE the government. Sure, we elect representatives to decide things so we don't all have to spend all day every day reading about stuff and voting, but all the government is is a group of people directing the efforts and money of the population. Government responsibilities are your responsibilities, whether financial or social.

        Opting out of that responsibility is only an option if you gtfo of the country.

      • SlickMick on 14/05/2025 - 09:12

        You realise that our unis are in crisis, right? The cost benefit ratio of an Australian qualification has plummeted.

        They're a great export, but terrible at actually doing their job - educating Australians.

        • Parentheses on 14/05/2025 - 23:02
          +1

          Educating Australians was never really their job - a side gig at best. Their job, and most of how they are funded and governed even today, is to do research. Teaching at universities has always been secondary in Australia. The teaching was benefit for the smartest (and richest) to get access to those incredibly skilled researchers, to either become researchers themselves, or become the upper tiers of professionals.

          This was of course utterly destroyed by a series of Liberal reforms that a) annihilated TAFE so their private sector mates could spin up paid vocational 'training' that taught nothing, b) annihilated the apprenticeships model because it was a direct feed into powerful unions, like the ones Howard ended up breaking, and c) annihilated public sector funding for university research and the CSIRO so universities needed to focus on getting money from students, particularly international students where the fees and numbers aren't set by government, so they could afford to do the research that they get rated on.

          I don't really think any of that can be fixed, the word TAFE has started being used in place of 'dogshit' and I don't think that reputation could be saved. What we probably need to do is split our research unis and our teaching unis (effectively making 'TAFE 2' just with a different name), but the one thing that NONE of the election arguments spoke of in the international student argument was increasing public university funding to make up the gap in tuition funding. So the odds of any of them doing that is near zero I would guess.

    • AustriaBargain on 14/05/2025 - 15:24

      Do you ever truly own a property though? 100 years from now you certainly won't own it, 150 years from now your kids will have surely sold it and your estate will have been completely drained. 300 years from now there will probably be no one on the planet who knows your name or remembers what you looked like. Nobody buys a home "forever", in the grand scheme of things you're just a renter.

  • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 17:46
    +2

    QLD

    The caring state
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-13/gold-coast-city-counc…

    • brendanm on 13/05/2025 - 20:18

      Those people leave absolute filth everywhere.

      • tenpercent on 13/05/2025 - 20:22
        +1

        Should they put it out every Thursday in their council bins?
        Oh wait…

        • Muppet Detector on 13/05/2025 - 20:47

          They don't have to move if they pay the fine. Consider the fine a contribution to the rent that they'd otherwise have to find.

          Besides, they may not have their own council bins, but they do have access to other bins where they could dispose of their waste.

          Homeless populations are not getting moved on because they're having a positive impact on their local community.

          Generally speaking, they imitate ghettos and slums, increase crime and allow the govt to avoid their responsibilities for addressing why these people are homeless in the first place.

          The homeless are usually a vulnerable population. When they live in non designated areas, that vulnerability creates a volatile environment that attracts predators and promotes predatory behaviour for an area that cannot provide them with the protection, service and support that they need.

          • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 21:00
            +3

            @Muppet Detector: TDLR
            Homeless = Low hanging fruit aka political football.

            I wonder. If the homeless critics had nothing to lose, what would they do to avoid being an 'eyesore'.
            Let's face it,these days the council ranger cohort are likely to be wannabe cops who get all aroused over bullying the vulnerable at the behest of spineless councillors with the empathy of a cane toad.

            There but for the grace of (insert deity) go I.

        • brendanm on 13/05/2025 - 21:35

          They could keep their areas tidy. Some of them do, though they are in the minority, the rest put shit everywhere. No shortage of bins where they are.

      • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 20:33
        +1

        absolute filth everywhere

        Then a NIMBY tax seems over due

        • brendanm on 13/05/2025 - 21:34

          Not going to fix that problem.

          • tenpercent on 14/05/2025 - 11:28

            @brendanm: +38k net migrants per month
            +10k homeless per month

            I just can't figure out how we could possibly solve the problem. /s

            • brendanm on 14/05/2025 - 12:36

              @tenpercent: Yes it's a complete mystery. But on the other hand, GDP must keep going up, even if most people are far worse off.

  • orangetrain on 13/05/2025 - 18:42
    +3

    I want a vacancy tax for commercial property. Insane rent demands by landlords. Huge amount of boarded up shops. Are there statistics for commercial property?

  • mrvaluepack on 13/05/2025 - 18:47
    +4

    Op and everyone here who doesn't know is a bit behind on the times. It's already here:

    https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/vacant-residential-land-tax

    • Protractor on 13/05/2025 - 19:16
      +2

      and down the page there is even a 'tip off' option for those who want to nominate vacant properties.

  • Benoffie on 13/05/2025 - 19:31
    +4

    My answer is no, except -

    House/land purchased by foreign or out of country owners with zero intention of living in them for the purposes of PR/Visa/money movement.

    That group is too significant. Not aimed at any one group either. Block of land around the corner from me, one owner, Greek family, they're back in Greece, haven't been back here in well over a decade.

    Ok sure, theyre paying land tax, but the block is big enough and on a collector road, it could fit 4-5 duplexes or 2 standard homes.

    Who's chasing that?

  • eddyah on 13/05/2025 - 20:47
    +1

    Give the details over to PurplePingers

    • JIMB0 on 13/05/2025 - 21:17

      And what does this fine bloke happen to do for a living?

      • ThithLord on 14/05/2025 - 13:59

        Cosplay an every-day man

  • athuntershill on 13/05/2025 - 21:40

    Yes, and tax people who have a spare room in their home while at it.

    • Muppet Detector on 13/05/2025 - 22:03

      So you want to charge me money because my kid moved out of home?

    • JIMB0 on 13/05/2025 - 22:40
      +1

      I've got a 5 bedroom house and it's just me, the wife and the dog. Should I have to pay tax on the 2 rooms that future kids will occupy?

      Then there's the big backyard, the dog uses it more than I do, should he be paying the tax as well? Will they accept kibble?

      How about the study and guest room that hardly gets used. Will I be forced to rent these out to uni-students to avoid the tax? And if I do, will I cop capital gains tax when I eventually sell?

      I'm not even going to mention the living rooms that never get used or the vacant garage and shed space.

      • Protractor on 14/05/2025 - 09:40

        They are yanking your chain.

        • JIMB0 on 14/05/2025 - 12:26
          +1

          I used to dream about owning a place like this.

          But apparently now it’s a moral failing unless I sublet my empty rooms and run a soup kitchen in the garage.

          Truth is, I’m just yanking their chain. I worked hard, bought smart, and now I’ve got the kind of house people write angry forum posts about.

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