SIMON BEAUMONT:
So there is a housing scheme in Australia, which I read about this week, that 79 West Australians have taken advantage of. There are 10,000 spots up for grabs and joining us now is Julie Collins, the Minister for Housing. She joins us now. Hi, Julie. How are you?
JULIE COLLINS:
Good morning, Simon. Good morning to your listeners.
BEAUMONT:
Minister, good to talk to you. So there has been a take up in WA to buy a first home in the country. It's probably fair to say it's been more subscribed to in other parts of Australia, but tell us how it should work and what is it meant to do?
COLLINS:
So this is to allow first home buyers assistance to get into their first home. We all know that with rent so high that saving for a deposit is quite a barrier for people. So what this scheme does is it allows people with as little as a five per cent deposit to purchase their first home. It's very well targeted. There is a cap on the purchase of the first home and there are income caps, so that we don't add pressure to the market. So it's about making sure that those people with five per cent deposit can get into their first home sooner. What the government then does is we guarantee the next 15 per cent, and it means that people can avoid paying tens of thousands of dollars in lender's mortgage insurance.
BEAUMONT:
So 79 houses, people taking it up in WA, Minister, we understand?
COLLINS:
Yeah. So, more than 100 West Australians have actually taken advantage of the scheme, and more than 80 have now purchased their first home. So I would say to those Australians living in regional Western Australia that want to get into their first home to talk to their financial institution about the regional first home buyer guarantee.
BEAUMONT:
All right. And just to clarify, is it your first country home or can you already be a homeowner in the metro area, or is it your first home?
COLLINS:
It's your first home, so it needs to be your first home. For those Australians - particularly West Australians - that are not living in regional Australia, who live in the cities, there is also another scheme called the Home Guarantee Scheme that does a similar thing. It has more places available, but it has different price caps depending on where people live. There are also, of course, income caps on it. So I think the cap for singles is around 125,000. For couples, it's 200,000. So what these schemes are about are targeted assistance to provide first-time buyers support to get into their first home, understanding that saving for a deposit of 20 per cent is quite a significant impost on a lot of people, particularly those people who are trying to afford rentals at the moment.
BEAUMONT:
Have you got any data, Minister, on whether it's country people taking up the offer or is it tree change, sea change people from the city? Any ideas there?
COLLINS:
Well, one of the things about the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee is people do need to have lived in the area or the neighbouring area for around twelve months. We do want to make sure that it's local people in those regional centres that are accessing the scheme, and that's why we have the other scheme for people that are in cities. And this is obviously just part of the broader government's housing agenda. We bought this scheme forward by three months. It wasn't supposed to start till 1 January, but we brought it forward to 1 October so that we could get more Australians into their first home sooner, and try and support them to do that. It is a terrific scheme. It's been pretty popular to date, but I would encourage those people, no matter where you live in Western Australia, either the regional First Home Buyer Guarantee or the First Home Guarantee scheme, to discuss them with their financial institutions if they can save 5 per cent deposit.
BEAUMONT:
Yeah, all right. So you reckon that information, the banks and the financial planners are custodians? They all know about it, yep?
COLLINS:
Yeah, they should all know about it, but it's also on the Federal Government's website. But people should talk to their financial institutions about accessing the scheme, and as I said, they are part of the broader scheme. I'm looking forward to, in coming weeks, introducing Housing Australia Future Fund Bill, which will be a $10 – a $10 billion future fund for housing. And what we want with that is, in the first five years, the returns from that investment to build another 30,000 social and affordable homes right around the country.
We also have our Supply and Affordability Council. We have our National Housing Accord, working with state and territory government, local government, the construction sector and community housing providers, which will be another 10,000 affordable homes from 2024. And we're going to create an entity called Housing Australia. And we're also going to have a Housing and Homelessness Plan, that will deliver on the accord that we've agreed with the state, territory, local government and others.
We do have a very ambitious housing agenda. We know that far too many Australians are finding it difficult to get a safe, affordable place to call home, and we want to do everything we can to support them. This is the Federal Government stepping up to the plate, saying we want to work with the states and territories, and we want to work with local government, and we want to work with community housing providers and the construction sector. And if we're all working together, we might be able to do something to try and help more Australians into a safe, affordable place to call home.
BEAUMONT:
Yeah, all right. We might have another chat, Minister, at some stage as that starts to take shape and we see what it looks like and what it means on the ground here in Western Australia. Thank you very much for your time today.
COLLINS:
Yes. No trouble, Simon. Thank you.