Sep
21
Australia Has a Taxing Problem When It Comes to Ghost Homes
By-
Water, electricity, tattletales to identify absent investors
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‘Shall we tax people who buy new shoes and don’t wear them?’
On a wet, midweek evening when most Australians are home cooking dinner, less than a third of the lights are on in the apartments in Melbourne’s Docklands. Most shops and restaurants are closed. The only people passing through seem to be on their way elsewhere.
These “ghost towers,” as the high-end residential property with three-bedroom apartments costing almost $1 million have been dubbed, are popular with Chinese investors who mostly live abroad. Their darkened blocks loom as sparsely occupied symbols of a property market where even solidly middle class households have increasingly found themselves priced out…
Australia Has a Taxing Problem When It Comes to Ghost Homes
