Lower our expectations? So the locals who live here need to take a back seat to the cashed up investors - a healthy portion of which are foreign - and live in a scrapheap because greed drives the market?

No way - release the land, even cut the prices back to what's sensible - homeowners won't be affected because they're living in their homes anyway.

So what happens with the 140000 blocks of land already owned by developers and which they refuse to release?? maybe the invest property group has missed out and is trying to get a bit of that action?

The challenge for the SCRC in the coming years is to develop the transport corridor along the rail line with a new highway road transport corridor near the rail.

To achieve this required medium and long term vision, a skill that seems unachievable by all forms of government, but we can live in hope.

The coastal strip development of the past three decades needs revision and the only alternative is the rail corridor.

To kick-start this the state government must consider placing the new hospital and associated infrastructure and west of the Bruce Highway near Chevellum.

So we must release more land; and when that land has all been sold and developed we will be back here again and we will have to release even more land!

Can’t anyone else see that this is not actually a solution: it just pushes the problem into the future and makes it bigger, while destroying our environment and using up our resources.

We need a real solution to this problem, not just a continuation of destructive patch-up jobs that keep most people borrowing more and more money, while making some people very rich at their expense, and destroying the environment on the way.

This problem requires a big overhaul of how our society and its economic system works, or it will never truly be resolved.

See also my comment on http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/feb...

"The Housing Affordability on the Sunshine Coast report was released by the University of the Sunshine Coast and funded by the Investa Proprety Group"

It is sad day when our universities become mindless cheerleaders for the development lobby.

The price of housing will come down only when we once again treat housing as shelter and home and not as a tax avoidance/minimisation scam. We have the highest housing costs in the developed world and it not due to a shortage of land despite what Dr Moran tells us.

When the State and Federal Governments put a stop to banking of land by developers and actually fix the problem? Releasing more land will just give the developers more land to bank and, hasd been pointed out, will simply push the problem into the future.

In no other area of basic necessity would the government allowing hording by a few to the detriment of the majority. Get rid of tax minimisation schemes, force developers too release the land and allow everyone to have a roof over their head It isn't bloody rocket science - it's people's lives and wellbeing.

strange that the bloke who wrote the report is linked with the institute of public affairs - and the report was paid for by a "developer" - is the report fair dinkum or just another land grab by "developers"??

canberra (the ACT) had the best system in the 70s and 80s- the government developed the land and sold it - there was never a shortage and never gross profits. maybe we should resume the land the developers haven't released and have the government (either council or state) sell the land to all buyers - at just above cost.

Thanks JBoast. Is there anything else which you need to tell us ? This has gone a long way to furthering mutual understanding.

Here's my suggestion,

The no nett change budgeting policy.

Council annually and incrementally increases fees on anything that is not owner occupied whilst reducing the same saved amount on principal places of residency.

State Government does the same thing with Stamp duty with no nett loss.

Federal Government scraps first home buyers and puts the money into low cost public housing for those with their backs to the wall. At the moment all of the Prime Minister’s children would be entitled to the non-means tested rebate.
Federal Government annually and incrementally increase Capital Gains Tax on investment dwellings, whilst ratcheting down on tax write offs associated with dwellings.

In combination these measures would take the hot air out of the housing market, over time

The enactment of some meaningful legislation capping fees on residential loans for principal place of residency and some stringent measures to, "encourage" ,developers to release a minimum number of available lots.

Review of the Real estate commissions, these people are making a motza for providing the same old service and they're still insisting that we pay to advertise, essentially what they've been commissioned to sell in the first place!

As for the younger folk and their spending habits....wake up and smell the roses...they all have a budget choice and accordingly you can choose to live the high life or go live out in the sticks.

Alternatively we could carry on business as usual and our kids can own their home at 55, pay off the car at 60 and clean ot their hex bill at 65 and hope that they can afford the shool fees and health in the interim. Don't mention the plasma !

BTW. John I've seen small developers sit on reasonable size parcels for years, then they had to scurry because of the "use it or lose it" decree.
Then having subdivided the newly created lots have sat there growing grass for many years since. These aren't pen pushing delays and if what others are saying is true, then the larger developers could be accused of holding the community to ransom just to bid up profits.
Canelands can't be used because of flooding, but there's no reason golf courses, caravan parks, sports stadiums or rehabilitated green space etc. couldn't be made viable.
I'd like to see a University study on this, surely the developers would be lining up to fund that one!