UDIA National has been and remains an active supporter of the Government’s housing and economic initiatives. Our focus remains on supporting governments to deliver sufficient new housing supply across the continuum.
Our members are reporting a growing foreign investment administrative blockage for the supply of new rental housing that is derailing investment approvals and Treasury’s efforts to manage foreign investment in Australia.
Currently, those that deliver new rental investment dwellings to the Australian market are seeing project investment being undermined by the administration of international investor approval. The issue is not with the validity of the approval itself, but rather the procedural steps involved that cause the problem. Potential investors simply cannot navigate the process as currently set up.
The solution does not involve changes to the foreign investment rules, but it does require some straightforward changes in the stepped process for approval.
Critically, the current process prevents the potential investor from allowing their Australian solicitor to engage in the process with the client. Not only is this an investment blocker but also a missed opportunity to build in a natural integrity measure by ensuring the online process is vetted by Australian legal experts.
This is a significant problem, because the majority of overseas owned investment property is made directly available to the rental market, and many dwelling providers rely on international pre-sales to obtain project finance. Every rental property pre-sold to international investors enables a second dwelling to be built for an Australian resident.
Our full submission letter can be found at the download link below