Saturday, March 28, 2009

How are other countries handling the financial crisis?

First Home Buyers Grant Sparks housing Boom.

THE housing industry is booming thanks to the First Home Owners Boost - and builders are having a hard time keeping up. The State Housing Minister, Jennifer Rankine, today joined other ministers in Adelaide to announce the latest statistics.

By the end of last month, 3351 South Australians had taken up the First Home Owners Boost, which in October was raised to $14,000 for existing dwellings and $21,000 for new homes.
"It's a great problem to have," Ms Rankine said. "There's so much building under way that we're worrying if we have enough builders."

Federal Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek said that the jobs created by the boom were crucial to riding out the world financial crisis. "We're talking almost a million jobs," Ms Plibersek said.
"We're keeping tradies and apprentices on the job, and putting people in homes." Ms Plibersek said that the South Australian uptake of the scheme compared favourably with other states.
Statistics from the Government show that South Australian home buyers accounted for more than 10 per cent of the 30,000 national applications.

David Pylyp; While other countries are investing in the real estate construction sector, in Ontario and specifically Toronto, in the last two years, we have added the additional Toronto Land Transfer Tax, on top of the existing Ontario Land Transfer Tax. Lot Levys (New Construction Levy) were under review for increase over four years in the City of Toronto and recently frozen due to the protest from developers. Licencing Fees for Landlords? This month the McGuinty government announced its intention to harmonize the goods and services tax with the provincial sales tax. As a result of this change, provincial sales tax will now be levied on legal fees, appraisals, real estate commissions, home inspection fees and other services related to a real estate transaction. OREA believes that this tax grab will severely hurt the resale housing market and reduce affordability for Ontarians trying to buy a home.

I encourage you to participate by clicking the following link so that you can also email your MPPS on this issue here: www.orea.com/consumercfa.

Maybe we could learn a thing or two from our Australian friends. Have your say,

Your comments are always invited.

No comments: