Liberals call for housing crisis declaration as ACT government moves to protect off-the-plan buyers

Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury will meanwhile present new laws to the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday designed to protect people buying property off-the-plan from developers unfairly cancelling contracts.

Mr Rattenbury said the laws, adapted from NSW and Victoria, would mean a developer could only rescind a contract if the buyer agreed or by an order of the Supreme Court, and come after buyers have reported having contracts torn up so a developer could resell the properties at a higher price.

"I'm very concerned to hear about home buyers losing the homes they set their hearts on, now inconvenienced and potentially out of pocket. This shouldn't be allowed to occur except in legitimate, justifiable circumstances, and certainly not just because a developer has determined they can make a greater profit elsewhere," Mr Rattenbury said.

The government's bill will be introduced on the same day as similar legislation by Liberal backbencher Peter Cain.

The opposition spokesman on housing, Mark Parton, will on Tuesday move a motion in the Legislative Assembly calling for a housing crisis declaration and an independent review of what impact ACT government policies have had on rising house prices and rent levels.

Mr Parton's motion will put the blame for the rising prices at the feet of ACT government policy, saying land taxes and residential rates, along with disincentives for landlords, and a constrained supply of greenfield development sites has pushed up prices.

"The government has at its disposal a range of policy levers and budgetary tools to ameliorate this terrible situation but refuses to do so," the motion will say.

Mr Parton said Canberra was "in the grip of a housing crisis of the Labor-Greens government's own making".

"The number of stand-alone houses on sale for less than a million dollars in the ACT is rapidly shrinking. This is denying a whole generation of Canberrans the aspiration of ever owning their own home. We don't become the most expensive place to buy and rent overnight - it's the product of 20 years of Labor-Greens government," Mr Parton said.

Canberra has the second most expensive property prices in the country, data from CoreLogic showed last week. CoreLogic data also shows Canberra remains the most expensive city in Australia to rent, with the median price currently $633 a week, up 9.6 per cent from the same time last year and far above the national median of $485 a week.

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The median value for dwellings, which includes houses and units, is now $864,909, making Canberra the second-most expensive capital city after Sydney, where the median price is $1,071,709.

In the year to October 31, prices grew 25.52 per cent, higher than any other capital city other than Hobart, which clocked a 28.06 per cent rise during the same period.

House values grew at a far greater rate than units in the past 12 months, gaining 29 per cent compared to 13 per cent.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has previously said a combination of record low interest rates and higher-than-usual household saving rates, driven by a drop in household consumption during pandemic-era lockdowns, had led to the rapid growth in ACT house prices.

The Suburban Land Agency has also defended the rate at which it supplies residential blocks in the ACT, after it was revealed about 7500 people registered to buy 115 blocks in a Taylor land release.

Suburban Land Agency chief executive John Dietz told an ACT budget estimates hearing last month the agency had continued to supply land faster than population growth in Canberra demanded it, and its average price-per-square-metre had fallen since the agency was created.

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