Vacant home levy proposed to fix SA housing crisis

A radical plan to tax vacant homes has been proposed to ease South Australia’s housing crisis. Anti-Poverty Network SA says there are up to 20,000 empty homes across the Greater Adelaide region – more than enough to accommodate more than 7000 South Australians currently sleeping rough. Better using vacant homes would also reduce the wait list for public housing, where nearly 14,000 South Australians are registered, APN SA spokesman John Kempen said. Mr Kempen said a vacant houses levy would reduce competition for rentals, increase affordability and boost public housing supply at a time when new house builds were being slowed by labour and materials shortages. A radical plan to tax vacant SA homes has been proposed. Under the organisation’s proposal, empty homes would be taxed at 0.5 per cent of their property value, meaning an owner of a property valued at $1.011m – the current Adelaide median house price – could be slugged $5055 a year. The tax would increase dramatically for those with multiple vacant homes, with a maximum 20 per cent marginal rate for empty houses with a combined worth of more than $6.812m. Owners of empty homes who refused to pay the levy would have their prope...