Housing Minister Clare O’Neil has been slammed over a social media ‘sales pitch’ encouraging Australians to tell their friends about Labor’s first-home buyers scheme.
Ms O’Neil posted the video to her X account on Monday afternoon to promote the expansion of the government’s Home Guarantee Scheme.
The scheme allows first-home buyers, regional buyers, and single parents to purchase property with a deposit of five per cent or less, rather than the usual 10 to 20 per cent typically required for a home loan.
In the caption, she wrote: ‘Are you thinking about buying a place? Is a friend of yours thinking about it? Tell them about Labor’s expanded Home Guarantee Scheme and you could be eligible to buy with a 5 per cent or less deposit.’
She said in the video: ‘Buying a house is one of the biggest things that you’re ever going to do in your life and the Albanese government wants to be there for you when it matters.’
‘We want more Australians to have the option of moving from renting to home buying and the Home Guarantee Scheme is one of the ways we’re helping out at the moment.’
Ms O’Neil explained the government will supplement applicants’ deposits to reach the minimum deposit threshold that banks require before granting a mortgage.
She then says ‘make sure you tell your friends’.
But the video prompted a backlash against the minister.
Housing minister Clare O’Neil has been slammed over a social media post about Labor’s housing scheme (pictured)
One user asked: ‘Why do your videos all feel like you’re selling a used car?’
Someone else said: ‘Your job isn’t to be a saleswoman involving pyramid schemes.’
A third user said: ‘I love the part, the government is working with the banks to make this possible…..gold.’
Others said that subsidising deposits only served to expand the number of people bidding for properties and drive extremely high prices even higher.
Others said the reason many cannot scrape together a ten per cent deposit is because rents are so high.
Australia has some of the highest real estate and rental prices in the world due to a shortfall in housing stock at a time of rapid population growth fueled by record immigration levels.
‘Hey Clare, Can you explain how your help-to-buy scheme is reducing the price of houses? Asking for a friend,’ one user said.
‘Someone else said: ‘No thanks. At this point as a single renter on over $110k in Sydney I’m basically scraping by since rent is almost 50 per cent and that’s south west…not CBD.
‘Australia’s house prices are legally sanctioned scams.’
Australians were not convinced by the housing minister’s comments (pictured)
Some commenters also expressed concern that a deposit of five per cent or less significantly increases weekly mortgage repayments on a typical 30-year loan, placing more pressure on first-home buyers, not less.
However, not everyone was critical – some said it was a good way to allow people to get onto the property ladder and off the rental queues.
‘This is great, but at 70 I am afraid the thought of buying my own house is now way beyond me and my wife, unless we win lotto, but it will help the young ones along,’ one user said.
The Albanese government has also pledged to help more people own homes by building 1.2 million houses over five years, but even that modest number compared to immigration inflows was proving too much as the program falls well behind schedule.
Labor said the builds would increase the supply and drive prices down, but the plan has been heavily criticised as a money-making scheme for wealthy developers.
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