HouseMate: A proposed national institution to build new homes and sell them cheap to any citizen who does not own a home

• In a world of unequal wealth and incomes, market provision of housing usually fails to provide quality housing options to young and low-income households. Like other necessary goods characterised by monopoly, like healthcare and pharmaceuticals, access to them via pricing creates inherent social challenges. • Historically, the social challenge of unequal access to housing was solved with public intervention to offer non-market housing at lower regulated price to first time buyers and renters. • The proposed HouseMate program is a 21st century housing supplier, copying the best features of Singapore’s successful housing system. • It will sell new homes to eligible Australian citizens at construction cost price, offering them a discounted mortgage, with purchasers able to pay deposit and repayments using their compulsory super contributions. • This new housing alternative will operate in parallel with the private purchase and rental markets. HouseMate owners will have all the rights and obligations of private homeowners, but with a mandatory occupancy period. • The design of HouseMate addresses all the key housing policy challenges in Australia, including o high deposit hurdles for first homebuyers, o uncertainty and high rents for low-income households, o younger households tying up income in super when homeownership is a higher priority for retirement, o price effects and inefficiencies of demand-only subsidy programs to homebuyers (like FHB grants) and renters (NRAS payments), and o limited innovation of design and construction in private housing markets. • If secure, low-cost housing via homeownership is a policy priority, there is no reason not to try the HouseMate program.