{"id":670700,"date":"2026-05-14T16:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T16:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670700\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T16:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T16:05:09","slug":"what-do-the-federal-budgets-housing-measures-do-for-australias-forever-renters-australian-budget-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670700\/","title":{"rendered":"What do the federal budget\u2019s housing measures do for Australia\u2019s \u2018forever renters\u2019? | Australian budget 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of months ago, Alyssa Shaw moved from Melbourne\u2019s south to its north-west. It was her 25th move in 15 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been working since I was 14 [and] it\u2019s really disappointing that I\u2019ve contributed a lot and I don\u2019t have the stability my parents had and that I thought would have by this age,\u201d the 36-year-old says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started renting at about 21. I stopped counting a little while ago but \u2026 I did the calculation once and it was averaging [moving house] every nine months,\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaw says the Albanese government\u2019s changes to property tax concessions are \u201cmeaningful\u201d for some, but they won\u2019t help renters like her who aren\u2019t anywhere near being able to afford to buy a home.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Designed to help people enter the housing market, the tax reforms outlined in Tuesday\u2019s federal budget<\/a> mean that, with a few exceptions, investment properties bought after 7.30pm on budget night will no longer benefit from negative gearing from 1 July 2027, at which time the 50% capital gains tax (CGT) discount will also be replaced.<\/p>\n

But what will the changes, which are only estimated to slow the growth of property prices by 2% over the next couple of years, do for \u201cforever renters\u201d like Shaw, for whom saving for a deposit still feels insurmountable?<\/p>\n

\"JimJim Chalmers on why Labor didn\u2019t scrap negative gearing completely in budget \u2013 video <\/p>\n

The Albanese government expects its reforms to CGT and negative gearing will lower investor demand for housing and help an extra 75,000 Australians into home ownership over the coming decade and even more first home buyers after that.<\/p>\n

While Labor\u2019s changes have been grand fathered in and won\u2019t apply to properties bought before 12 May 2026, Treasury expects the benefits of negative gearing for existing investors to wash out after about 10 years.<\/p>\n

Treasury modelling shows the effect on rents is estimated to be minimal: an extra $2 a week for a household paying the median rent.<\/p>\n

Shaw, who says she would struggle to save enough as a single person to buy a property and service a mortgage despite working-full time, believes housing inequity is affecting the \u201chealth and hope\u201d of young and working-class people.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll governments could start \u2026 by prioritising rental caps,\u201d she says. \u201cI worked out my rent had gone up about 44% in five years. My income hasn\u2019t gone up 44% in five years.<\/p>\n

Swinburne housing expert Prof Wendy Stone says the budget takes \u201csome bold first steps\u201d towards changing the structural conditions that have driven property-related housing inequality in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor people who are likely to be long-term renters this budget doesn\u2019t necessarily change that picture,\u201d Stone says.<\/p>\n

The Coalition has vowed to repeal Labor\u2019s changes<\/a> to negative gearing and capital gains tax if they win government, while the Greens say the reforms entrench existing housing inequality by locking in tax breaks for multi-property owners.<\/p>\n

As someone who has lived in rentals her entire life, Koushalya Pereiaslov, thinks the Albanese government\u2019s changes to tax concessions for investment property owners<\/a> are \u201cgreat\u201d, but they won\u2019t do much for her.<\/p>\n

Pereiaslov, who relocated to the northern rivers in New South Wales after being priced out of the Gold Coast, has moved on average once a year while imagining what it would be like to own her own home.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest it\u2019s been my dream since I was probably three years old,\u201d says Pereiaslov, now 26 and living in a rented share house.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a child of a single mum \u2026 we\u2019ve been buying lotto tickets with my grandma since I was three and dreaming, \u2018Oh this is what [the house] would be like\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Koushalya Pereiaslov doesn\u2019t think the government\u2019s changes will do much for her. Photograph: Supplied\/Koushalya Pereiaslov<\/p>\n

Pereiaslov says for people in a \u201clower economic demographic\u201d like herself, the dream of home ownership still feels unattainable.<\/p>\n

Pereiaslov, a support worker at an employment and training service for National Disability Insurance Scheme participants, says she is spending up to half her pay on rent and so saving for a deposit is impossible \u201cwhen life is so expensive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Through a classmate at Tafe, Pereiaslov says she knows single mothers in the area who have been forced to move because they can\u2019t afford rent, let alone a mortgage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always feel that some one else is kind of writing my story for me and I\u2019m not in control of where I want to be and how I want to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A couple of months ago, Alyssa Shaw moved from Melbourne\u2019s south to its north-west. It was her 25th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-670700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}