PM’S blunt message on price of houses

PRIME Minister Scott Morrison says house prices are rising, bluntly adding “that’s how the market works”, during an address to the building and construction industry.

Mr Morrison and Labor leader Anthony Albanese each delivered speeches to the annual Master Builders National Leaders Election Summit on Friday that had to be held virtually due to Covid.

The Prime Minister said builders had been integral to Australia’s economic success because they had “kept moving” throughout the pandemic.

“We’ve seen dwelling approvals, new home sales, housing finance bounce back significantly, not just once but on a number of occasions,” he said.

“More detached homes began construction in the year to September 2021 than any previous period since records began.”

He later spoke about the government’s homebuyer guarantee scheme, which helps people looking to buy a property for the first time get into the market without having to pay expensive lenders mortgage insurance.

There are different schemes that allow them to build a new home or buy an existing one.

About 300,000 people have used the schemes in the past three years.

“Now it hasn’t got easier to buy a home in any of our capital cities and particularly in an increasing number of regional areas,” Mr Morrison said. “Prices have been going up. “That’s how the market works.”

But Mr Morrison said the number of owner-occupier first-time buyers had risen from 100,000 a year to 170,000 a year.

The Prime Minister’s blunt assessment comes after the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data this week showed that wage growth rose 2.3 per cent compared to a year earlier, still well short of inflation at 3.5 per cent.

Mr Albanese told the summit that families were struggling to get by and wages weren’t keeping up with the cost of living.

He didn’t go into specifics of how he would fix that problem.