Cooma Real Estate and the Carbon Tax

Everyone is discussing now how a carbon tax will make our energy bills higher. Yet there’s another negative effect to a carbon tax that doesn’t get much coverage in the media – and it really should. At a first glance housing prices in Cooma and carbon tax may seem unrelated, but a closer look reveals that there is a connection.

When a local construction company pays more for building materials, fixtures and fittings, it is likely to pass that on to the home buyers, to keep its profits on the same level. HIA (Housing Industry Association) estimates the effect of a carbon tax on the cost of an average new house to be $6000, which may result in a new home buyer paying an extra $12,800 over a 25-year loan.

Another possible outcome is that construction companies will source the building materials overseas, to get a better deal, as not all countries in the world have introduced (or will ever introduce!) a carbon tax. The hidden danger of this situation could be that imported products won’t be made to Australian Standards, and may not have the same quality/credibility. So even if we were to buy a new house and not pay more, it could be of lesser quality.

The government is promising to compensate us for the obvious effects of a carbon tax – the easy to see ones – on the utility bills. Not sure whether or not this will happen or how it will work. But even if it does … what about the housing prices in Cooma?

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