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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-13 Daily Xml
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Housing Affordability

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding housing.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Ms Lee will be heard in silence.

The Hon. R.P. Wortley interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wortley is out of order and should know better. The Hon. Ms Lee.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Can the minister please provide an update to the council about how the Marshall Liberal government is creating more jobs and opportunities for South Australians to get into the housing market?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The leader is out of order.

The Hon. E.S. Bourke interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: And the Hon. Ms Bourke.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:38): I thank the honourable member for her question. Indeed, I am very pleased that the latest range of properties which were released to market under our Affordable Homes Program sold out within 48 hours. We had 12 properties for sale at Dover Gardens, which are under construction from the builder Metricon Homes, EveryOne division. They were for sale at $420,000 but eligible applicants using HomeStart financial packages could pay as little as $318,150.

This is part of our package to deliver 1,000 affordable homes to market and has proven to be very successful. Also through our new website, HomeSeeker SA, which has been going, as the Treasurer would describe, gangbusters with the number of registrants, clearly there is a demand in this part of the market for people who are seeking to purchase homes at this property price.

One of the advantages for people who purchase these homes is they are not competing with investors. The price is fixed, so they are not having the experience that a lot of people do in other spaces where they have to bid up; it is a capped price. The advice is that HomeStart can assist people to bring that price down.

The HomeSeeker SA website has had nearly half a million page views, over 100,000 site visits and total subscribers of 2,000. We know that there is great demand in this space. It assists people to get advice about how to get their foot into the property market. We know that the people who purchase these homes through this program do actually tend to stay in them longer than they do for other purchases in the rest of the market. We know that there has been a number of single younger women in particular who have been snapping them up, and we look forward to releasing more to market in future.

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