The million-dollar property question no one wants to answer

July 5, 2026 — 5:00am

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It’s the million-dollar question that nobody can answer. For weeks, politicians of every ideological ilk have been asked: do you want property prices to go down?

There is no right answer to the question, which is precisely why no one will answer it.

Say yes, and you would be decried as a wealth-destroying socialist. Say no, and you are setting yourself against what almost every economist, politician and ordinary person has acknowledged for years: the Australian property market is acutely unaffordable, to the extent where it’s affecting social cohesion.

So far, attention has focused on the trickiness of the government, notably Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who squirm when asked if lower housing prices were the intent of the capital gains tax and negative gearing policies introduced in the May budget, and now legislated.

Asked by Insiders’ David Speers if he would be worried about a 10 per cent drop in prices, Chalmers said that “we’re not aiming for a particular aggregate outcome in price or percentage”. On Channel Seven’s Sunrise program, Chalmers would allow that prices were “softening in the two big markets, Sydney and Melbourne”.

But there has been less attention on the politicians who are happy to mutter darkly about a “crash” in house prices, or even the hypothetical prospect of home owners going into negative equity.

They have been ably assisted by a media campaign from predictable quarters, which is scouring the country to come up with someone, anyone, who has been pushed into negative equity by the government’s tax changes. So far, little success. (Interestingly, those who promote personal responsibility in other policy areas don’t seem to apply the principle to home buyers who have taken on so much debt that they........

© Brisbane Times