Harry wants apartment buyers to have a fair go

A GREAT opportunity is unfolding for people intending to buy new apartments and it would be even greater but for what Meriton founder Harry Triguboff terms an unfair penalty.

Meriton says the buying opportunity has been created by super-low interest rates and by rising incomes as people affected by COVID-19 return to work.

Australia’s largest developer of apartments, which for more than a decade has been running design competitions for its buildings, also says buyers never have fared so well in terms of building ‘appeal’.

It says there has been a dramatic improvement in building facades and architects have responded to a clear buyer desire to live in buildings that not only are functional and luxurious, but are aesthetically pleasing.

Mr Triguboff says that running counter to such positives for buyers is a ‘glaring’ stamp-duty anomaly.

He says buyers of new apartments pay stamp duty on the full purchase price. By contract, buyers who sign up for house-land packages only are asked to pay stamp duty on the land.

Mr Triguboff says levelling the stamp-duty playing field would give developers of apartment buildings the confidence needed to step up their pace and create more jobs.

“The bogey of punishing stamp-duty levels shouldn’t be there and the demand for new apartments, in tandem with the historically low interest rates and government incentives, would continue to climb.”