Property 'reforms' miss the point as stamp duty remains the real cost barrier

State Governments are at it again – tinkering around the edges of the property market, introducing new rules that will do little to actually make buying property more affordable.

The Victorian Government is the latest to announce a property market shake-up designed to make buying a home cheaper and easier.

The pitch is that buyers are often spending up to $600 for building and pest inspections - sometimes multiple times - and that it’s unfair and inefficient.

Instead, it wants to put the cost onto the sellers, by making it mandatory that they organise and pay for a building and pest inspection when selling and make it available to all potential buyers.

That’s all fine in principle - there’s nothing wrong with standardising information and reducing duplicated costs – but saving a buyer a few hundred dollars is not exactly the “affordability breakthrough” that is needed.

It’s time governments of all levels and persuasions accept the real financial impost to buyers is not building and pest inspections but their own fees and charges.

And we all know that is not going to change because property continues to be one of the biggest cash cows available for filling Government coffers.

The real cost of buying isn’t blown out by a $600 inspection report, it’s the massive transaction tax known as stamp duty, which blocks people from moving, upgrading, downsizing or even participating in the first place.

Stamp duty's unintended consequences

At the Melbourne median house price - $977,000 as of 1 March 2026 – an owner-occupier of an existing home is staring at roughly $54,000 in stamp duty. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a new car.

In Queensland, a home of the same price and circumstances would attract a stamp duty of about $30,000 and in New South Wales it would be around $39,000.

Imagine how much more affordable buying a property would be without exorbitant costs like stamp duty attached to it.

So, when the Victorian Government tells voters it’s stepping in to “make life easier” by saving $600, it’s hard not to roll your eyes.

If you’re paying $54,000 just for the privilege of transferring the title, the inspection cost is not the barrier. It’s not even in the top ten. It’s the paper cut they’ve chosen to bandage while ignoring the broken leg.

And it’s not just buyers who get punished.

Stamp duty is a mobility tax. It discourages people from selling and moving because the cost to transact is so punitive that it traps households in the wrong home - too small, too big, too far from work, too far from schools - even when their life circumstances change and downsizing makes sense.

And that’s what reduces turnover, reduces listings and reduces supply.

These kinds of announcements are politics not policy. It’s a way to claim the Government is saving you money by erasing the smallest and least consequential cost in the entire buying process.

Saving buyers $600 while charging them $54,000 is not a solution. It’s a distraction. And a deception.