The Australian government has announced a two-year ban on foreign entities buying residential property in the country.
“Today the government is announcing that we will ban foreign ownership of existing residential property in Australia,” Australian Housing Minister Clare O’Neil told Sky News on Sunday, calling the ban “an important move”.
“It’s not a magic solution to the housing crisis because there is no magic solution, but I really strongly believe that given the housing pressures that Australians are facing today, we need to focus the entire Australian Government’s efforts around housing security for Australians and, wherever possible, home ownership for a wider range of young Australians,” the minister told Sky News.
“Until now, foreign investors have generally been prohibited from buying existing property except in limited circumstances, such as when they come to live here for work or study,” O’Neil said in a statement.
“From (April 1) 2025, foreign investors (including temporary residents and foreign-owned businesses) will no longer be able to buy residential property in Australia while the ban is in place, unless an exception applies,” she explained.
O’Neil said that in the financial year 2022-23 foreign buyers bought about 1,800 existing residential buildings.
The minister announced that the government will provide 3.6 million US dollars over four years from July 2025 “for the implementation of the ban and increased scrutiny of foreign investment proposals related to residential property”.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that at least 20 properties would be exempted from the ban.
For the period July 2022 to June 2023, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) reported 5,360 residential property purchases – worth a total of $4.9 billion – that had a “level of foreign ownership”. Of these, 1823 were “residential properties”.
In the same period, the “total number of foreign residential property sales transactions” was 1,119, according to the ATO, with a total value of $1 billion.
The policy mirrors a similar opposition proposal from a year ago, meaning it should receive bipartisan support.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor government has said helping young Australians get on the property ladder is one of its priorities ahead of this year’s federal election.
