Commentary topic
Housing policy changes incentives, but homes still need to be funded, built and held. These pieces test policy proposals against the practical economics faced by owners, renters and suppliers.
Selected published reading on this subject.
The Kilroy View · Ownership Economics
Younger Australians are less likely to own homes than previous generations were at the same age. Mark Kilroy argues the deeper challenge is not only affordability, but restoring a credible pathway into durable ownership.
Who Actually Pays? · Housing & Policy
Australia is restricting negative gearing while expanding taxpayer support for social and affordable housing. Mark Kilroy argues that these programs should be judged through transparent project-level reporting showing support per dwelling, ownership, investment returns, rents, long-term public benefit and the number of additional homes delivered for every taxpayer dollar.
Who Actually Pays? · Housing & Policy
Australia measures housing progress in approvals, targets and rezonings — but an approval is not a completed home. Mark Kilroy argues the real crisis is feasibility: when required selling prices exceed what buyers can afford, projects simply don't proceed, no matter how many are approved. Writing from the Gold Coast, he calls for independently costing every new regulation, pricing the true cost of approval delays, and broadening what Australia calls a home — purpose-built co-living, backyard homes, modular construction, key-worker housing on institutional land, conversions and smaller homes — delivered without lowering standards.
Who Actually Pays? · Ownership Economics
Twenty years ago, institutional ownership reshaped commercial property in the UK. Today, Australia is beginning the same conversation around housing — Build-to-Rent, superannuation capital, global pension funds. Australia needs that capital. But housing policy and ownership policy are not the same thing: a country can build more homes while creating fewer homeowners. The question worth asking is who we want to own Australia in twenty years' time.
Before You Sell · Tax & Depreciation
Negative gearing, CGT and SMSF borrowing — three major reforms all pointing the same way: fewer tax concessions for everyday property investors, while institutional structures are treated differently. The question nobody wants to ask is not whether these reforms improve affordability, but who ends up owning Australia's homes.
Who Actually Pays? · Tax & Depreciation
Australia's housing debate centres on interest rates, supply, migration and tax. There's a fourth variable that rarely appears: whether the labour market that underpins mortgage demand will look anything like it does today within a decade. Every mortgage is a bet on future income — and AI is quietly reshaping the professional class those incomes depend on.
Before You Sell · Tax & Depreciation
Australia's housing debate is consumed by interest rates, negative gearing, CGT and migration. Beneath all of it sits a much larger question almost nobody is willing to discuss: what happens to the housing market if white-collar work itself fundamentally changes over the next decade?
Before You Sell · Tax & Depreciation
The data tells a very different story to the headlines. 72% of property investors own just one property. 64% earn less than $80,000. The proposed negative gearing and CGT changes target 9.5% of investors, but the consequences flow through the entire rental market.