Forget Taxes, Fix Supply
The Housing Industry Association is urging policymakers to prioritise increasing housing supply over changing investor taxes, such as negative gearing.
Its comments follow the release of a new report by the McKell Institute recommending changes to taxes on property investors.
HIA chief economist Tim Reardon says the core cause of the housing crisis is the insufficient number of homes relative to population growth, not investor activity.
“Australia has 27 million people, and 11 million homes,” he says. “Even if investors are banned from owning homes, the problem remains that there aren’t enough homes.”
Reardon says the cause of the housing shortage is not negative gearing and suggests addressing Australia’s undersupply requires less tax, fewer fees, and fewer regulatory barriers.
“An acute undersupply of housing is evident across all markets following decades of ongoing tax imposts on housing and additional costs imposed by local, state and Australian governments,” he says.
About half of Australian investors are positively or neutrally geared, according to FY2023 tax data released by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in July 2025.
