Yurt Empire

Hometrack's Brendan Darcy recently released analysis claiming that the ABS data significantly under-estimated the housing supply in Australia, because it only counts "occupied dwellings". But on census night in 2006, the ABS reported 830,000 unoccupied dwellings. "We estimate there are at least 10 million dwellings in Australia compared with ABS data showing occupied dwellings of 8.3 million. The extra one to two million dwellings consist of a mixture of housing awaiting sale or development, vacant dwellings, second homes, and abandoned homes," Darcy concluded.

Australia has one of the most skewed property taxation regimes in the industrialised world, rewarding investors and owner-occupiers at the expense of renters and those looking to buy a house. The Capital Gains Tax exemption for the family home costs taxpayers $30 billion a year, disproportionately advantaging those of us who own multi-million dollar homes.

the number of landlords reporting profits grew by 36,000, while those reporting losses grew by 594,000.