Jim Chalmers said housing was a long-term investment and prices would rise in years to come as the national market experiences its deepest downturn since Albanese came to office.
Figures released by Cotality today show dwelling values in the nation’s capitals dropped by 0.9 per cent through July, led by a steep fall in the value of houses in Sydney and Melbourne.
“The budget assumptions were that over the course of the next couple of years, we will see prices continue to grow, but a bit more modestly than they have been, and obviously this is only the first couple of months of that two-year period,” the treasurer told Radio National after Labor wound back the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing in its May budget.
He said Cotality had also pointed to interest rates, higher fuel prices and cost of living as causes for the downturn, and said it was not uncommon for house prices to come off.
“If you look over the past couple of decades, even if we’ve had over that period, a period of extraordinary price growth, we’ve still had in that two-decade period, I think at least seven times, where prices have come off,” he said.
“Investment in housing is a long-term investment. People don’t make investments in housing from day to day or week to week, month to month, and so from time to time you will see movements in prices like these.”
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