The Hodgman Liberal Government will extend important housing initiatives that are helping families buy their first home and pensioners to downsize.
Last year, the Government passed legislation to introduce a range of taxation relief initiatives to help first home buyers enter the market, and free-up more family-sized homes by encouraging eligible pensioners to downsize.
This included a 50 per cent duty concessions for first homebuyers of established properties and eligible pensioners downsizing to smaller dwellings.
In less than a year, these measures have helped 776 first home buyers to afford to purchase a home, and 149 pensioners to downsize – releasing more family homes onto the market.
Given these measures, which are making a positive impact on housing affordability in Tasmania are due to expire, the Government has made the decision to act now, ahead of this year’s budget process, to extend these measures to 30 June 2019. This allows first home buyers and eligible pensioners to continue to access these measures for the remainder of the financial year, with any further extension to be considered in the 2019-20 budget development process.
These measures are part of a suite of Government measures to address housing pressures. We have been very active in stimulating the building of more homes through our first home builders incentive (which continues to be in place), our Affordable Housing Strategy, and the rapid rezoning of Government owned land to build more housing.
An outcome of last year’s Housing Summit, a one year land tax exemption for short-term accommodation properties that are converted to long-term rentals, will also be extended until 30 June. This measure complements our Private Rental Incentive scheme, which is designed to encourage property owners to make affordable rental properties available to low income Tasmanians. This pilot program has so far seen 57 households assisted, and we anticipate that 110 households will be supported through the program.
The Liberal Government will continue to work to increase the supply of housing and help Tasmanians to purchase homes.
For more information visit www.housing.tas.gov.au