Voters back Dutton pledge to block foreign investors buying Australian homes

Australians have strongly backed a Coalition plan to stop foreign investors buying residential property, with 69 per cent of voters in favour of the move as a way to help local bidders get into the housing market.

The policy has majority support across the political divide, with 60 per cent of Labor voters in favour amid a broader election fight over policies to slow migration, guarantee mortgages or offer federal money to the states to build more homes.

But the government has dismissed the Coalition idea as too small to make a difference when foreign buyers already face restrictions on purchasing homes, as well as paying application fees and an annual vacancy fee if they do not use the property.

An exclusive survey shows that support for the Coalition proposal is higher in marginal electorates (73 per cent) before a tight election when both major parties are trying to prove they have policy solutions on housing.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton promised the investment ban last year as the first step in a three-part plan to release more homes for Australians, saying it was unfair for local buyers to lose in a property auction to a bidder from overseas with deeper pockets.

“We will implement a two-year ban on foreign investors and temporary residents purchasing existing homes in Australia,” he said in his budget reply speech last May.

Voters have backed a plan to block foreign investment in the residential property market.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos, Nathan Perri

The Coalition plan does not prevent foreign investors buying into new apartment towers or housing projects, given arguments that the offshore funding can help encourage construction.

Dutton has also pledged to cut the permanent migration intake from 185,000 to 140,000 each year over the next two years, as well as promising to reduce intake of overseas students at universities.

The survey, conducted for this masthead by research company Resolve Strategic, shows that only 9 per cent of voters oppose the Coalition policy and 22 per cent are unsure.

The question was: “Peter Dutton has announced a policy to temporarily stop foreign investment in residential property to take pressure off the housing market. This would mean a two-year pause on foreign citizens and temporary residents buying existing homes in Australia. Do you support or oppose this temporary ban on foreign investment in residential property?”

The policy has the strongest support among Coalition voters, with 79 per cent in favour, but is also backed by those who vote for Labor (60 per cent) and the Greens (58 per cent).

The Resolve Political Monitor surveyed 1616 people from January 15 to 21, generating results with a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points. The respondents reflected the Australian population by location, gender, age, income and other factors.

In a further question about the ban, 47 per cent of eligible voters said they would support the ban being permanent if it went ahead. Another 29 per cent said they favoured a temporary ban, while 23 per cent were unsure.

Federal laws were loosened to encourage foreign investors in residential property in 2008, only to be tightened in later years as both major parties reacted to voter concerns. The Coalition imposed fees and restrictions on the offshore buyers in 2015 and set up a register to track the purchases.

Foreign investors bought 5360 homes in the year to June 2023, according to the Treasury tally, in deals worth $4.9 billion. Victoria, NSW and Queensland accounted for three-quarters of the transactions.

The most recent quarterly report showed that foreign investors gained approval to buy 1199 residential properties in the three months to June 2024. It said that 824 were approved with conditions – but did not reveal the details – and 375 were approved without conditions.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers dismissed the Coalition plan as “not thought through” when Dutton unveiled it last year.

“There are already quite strict restrictions on foreign purchases of residential property, and we have taken further steps to dramatically increase the fees where that occurs,” he said.

Chalmers made changes in February last year to triple the foreign investment fees for the purchase of established homes and double the vacancy fees for those dwellings left empty. Foreign investors who buy a home worth between $2 million and $3 million pay an application fee of $59,000, with the amount rising in line with the purchase price.

If owners do not use a property for at least 183 days each year and do not rent it out, they are liable for annual vacancy fees worth the same as the application fee and sometimes twice as much as those fees.

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