First home buyers.

The increase in home prices is rapidly locking first home buyers and those on low incomes out of the market. This problem has got the attention of governments, finance houses - and it seems a lot of entrepreneurial people.
One promising scheme under way in a southern state involves making the biggest cost of establishing a home - obtaining the block of land on which it sits - a freebie during the early years of a loan.
A block of land is made available to the applicant with the proviso that a home must be built on it during a stipulated period of time. There are no payments associated with this land and therefore the mortgage is small as it only concerns the cost of the dwelling.
So - what benefit accrues to the owner of that land ?
Two factors come into force. Should the new owner of the house decide to sell, the land content - at whatever it's value at the time of sale - is subtracted from the sale price. The owner gets the profit on the house, but not the land because someone else actually owned that.
The second factor is a time clause. The land is free of charge for a certain period of time - probably somewhere between five and ten years - during which time the affluence of the home owner should have improved - and the mortgage suitably decreased - to the stage when buying the land by increasing the mortgage is viable.
It would be hard to see this working in high value suburbs of a city like Sydney, but it would certainly work in the outlying suburbs and in country towns.
It is something that the finance industry would be wise to consider - and it could be the answer to our rapidly declining rural towns !