We don't have yearly property taxes in Australia, just council rates which are usually around 0.2% of the house valuation (which is much lower than in the US AFAIK). However we don't have the split land/house purchasing like in the UK (or it's not very common at least) - I wonder why?
"However we don't have the split land/house purchasing like in the UK"
Of course you do [1], and it's even very common. My cursory Google search shows that in Victory, the state with the most private ownership, 40% of all land is lease hold. Other states even more! The whole city of Canberra is leasehold. That said, it's mostly leases of Crown land, so the economic incentives are a bit different from leasing land from a private owner.
Hey, no fair taking away this part of my comment! "(or it's not very common at least)"
But when you say "40% of all land is lease hold" - are you talking all land now? I was talking about residential housing, and should have made it clearer I was talking about the domain I am used to, i.e. houses in major cities, i.e. in my case Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Having a quick google around and it looks like in rural areas leasehold is more common.
Interesting to learn more about this stuff, thanks for the link.
We most certainly do have yearly property taxes in Australia. Your principal place of residence is exempt. Your holiday house, or your office building is not.
That is why residential property is almost entirely freehold not leasehold.
The UK is the type of place where every last square inch of land has been claimed and defended several times over. Australia likely has plenty of land that no one is in a hurry to claim.
It may be important to note that while Australia has a huge amount of land, most people live in the cities. Australia's urban population is 90%, versus the UK's 80% and the US's 82%. There are only a couple of large countries higher than Australia in this regard.
We have fooled not only the world into thinking we're all outback-dwellers, but also ourselves. What we like is tarmac and suburban strips.
The property market underwent a huge decade plus long boom in Australia, with land prices rising astronomically. There are all sorts of rules for land development in place, and limited availability for development in the major cities. It's not quite as bad as the UK, but it's not like we have huge chunks of land to spare.
I assume it's either a result of property law differences, or the sheer length of time land has been available to own in the UK. Would love to know more about it.
