How stamp duty has changed since your parents bought their home?

In just one generation, you are paying 6 times more stamp duty than your parents paid when they bought their home.

As reported by REIQ on 12 February 2024, research from PropTrack-361 Institute has found the cost of stamp duty have increased fourfold for median-priced homes in Australia’s capital cities compared to average incomes since the early 1980’s.

We are lucky to be country bumpkins, because for the people of Sydney and Melbourne, stamp duty costs are about 6 months wages for the average person working full time.

There are now calls for the government to reassess stamp duty, due to the sharply rising house prices and the ever declining housing affordability.

To buy a home in Melbourne you need to save $42,500 in stamp duty for the average home, while in Sydney it is $44,500, which is about 6 months wages for the average person.

If you are buying a home in Brisbane you need to save about $18,700, which is just under 3 months wages for the average person, but still 5.5 times higher than 4 decades ago.  If you are considering buying a rental property you would need to save $25,900.

The President of the Real Estate Institute of Australia, Leanne Pilkington, has called stamp duty Australia’s most antiquated tax.  She further indicates that stamp duty was a broken promise with the introduction of GST and state governments continue to be happy to collect nearly $60 billion in stamp duty every year while at the same time griping about housing affordability and failing to build enough houses.

There doesn’t appear to be a silver bullet in terms of housing affordability, however, every little bit helps and I believe that pulling a little on every lever to try and fix the problem would be a better option than a major shift in one area.