Greens push for vacancy tax to fix Queensland housing crisis

A new tax for investors who rent out their homes for Airbnb or leave houses empty would free up more than 20,000 properties for the rental market, its proponents say.

Investors who rent out homes Airbnb style or leave properties empty would be slugged with a hefty tax under a proposal from the Queensland Greens.

The vacancy tax proposal, which exists around the world in different forms, would free up more than 20,000 properties into the rental market amid a housing crisis according to the Greens.

The proposal comes as the state government prepares to hold a landmark housing crisis summit on October 21 and at a time when almost 46,000 Queenslanders wait for public housing.

The Greens’ will introduce their private members bill for the “Empty Homes Levy” in parliament on Thursday.

Under the Greens’ plan homeowners who leave a property — that isn’t their principal place of residence — empty for more than six months in a year would be slugged 5 per cent of the “capital improved value”.

Homes rented out on Airbnb-style sites would be considered “vacant” under the plan.

And whole properties rented out for short stay accommodation like Airbnb, would be caught in the net, with the Greens proposing each day a property is let out equates to it being “vacant”.

A 5 per cent levy would also be imposed on undeveloped land left vacant for six months in a year if that plot can be used to build residential properties.

South Brisbane MP Dr Amy MacMahon said the Greens’ ultimately hoped the levy would raise zero dollars, rather it would compel people to “put their properties back onto the market”.

“We looked at the average home in Brisbane going for about $800,000 at the moment would be levied about $40,000,” she said.

“The alternative would be to have tenants in there … (and) in there long term.

“We could be bringing around 20,000 homes back into the rental market, significantly easing the kind of vacancy pressures that Queensland is facing at the moment.”

South Brisbane MP Dr Amy MacMahon. Picture: Richard Walker

Victoria also has a vacancy property levy, though it is 1 per cent in that state and relies heavily on homeowners and investors self-reporting the status of the property.

But under the Greens’ plan, a property would be exempt from the levy if an “appropriate rental bond has been lodged with the Residential Tenancies Authority for that property or if the owner can prove an informal residential tenancy”.

This would put the onus on property investors to prove a home was indeed occupied, rather than the other way around.

There would be exemptions for properties that had changed hands in the last year, if renovations or construction was happening, and if the person who usually lived there was in hospital, aged care or other supported accommodation.

Aged care facilities, hotel and hostels, retirement villages, and supported accommodation services would not fall under the levy.

Originally published as Greens push for vacancy tax to fix Queensland housing crisis