Aspiring Melbourne real estate owners and victims of urban sprawl, be prepared for the upsetting truth behind the houses you are clamoring to get your hands on.
A new report indicated that about one in five investor-owned properties in Melbourne are actually unoccupied. It revealed that "hipster areas" such as Brunswick have more than 2,000 empty houses annually.
The 2015 Speculative Vacancies Report discovered this infuriating data by analyzing water consumption in Melbourne households. In the said report, houses with abnormally low water consumption (lesser usage than that caused by a leaky tap) were classified as "speculative vacancies."
The data showed 82,724 or 4.8 percent of Melbourne's total housing stock consumed less than 50 liters of water per day during the 12 months to October. Meanwhile, 24,872 houses consumed no water at all making them clearly empty. The report labelled the unoccupied properties "a needless economic burden."
Prosper Australia's Project Director Karl Fitzgerald who spearheaded the study, explained that the figures they gathered showed an oversupply of unused housing which had a dire effect on prospective buyers and renters.
He said, "Sprawl is the key effect when people are locked out of the property market, and for me this is just tragic."
Fitzgerald continued, "We see people being trapped in gridlock commuting to and from work, it adds to a lot of traffic, frustration, and there are all sort of side effects on health."
"First homebuyers and anyone locked out of the market, anyone living in a dark hovel, really should have this information," he insisted.
Fitzgerald also cited capital gains as the culprit of the problem. He is convinced that property owners are unmotivated to rent out their properties because capital gains were more lucrative than rental income.
Queensland University of Technology property economics professor Chris Eves disagreed on capital gains. He asserted that Melbourne real estate investors are "holding back for higher rent."
