Ripon MP Louise Staley has hit out at what she believes is blatant discrimination against prospective homebuyers in Pyrenees Shire.<\/p>\n
The State Government\u2019s Homebuyer Fund provides eligible homebuyers with a contribution of up to 25% towards the purchase price of their property, reducing their minimum required deposit to 5% and avoiding the need to pay mortgage insurance.<\/p>\n
It is a program the government claims will help more Victorians buy their own home.<\/p>\n
Ms Staley said she supports the initiative, but has recently discovered it doesn\u2019t apply to people wanting to buy in Pyrenees Shire.
\n\u201cThe fine print reveals not all Victorians are equal when it comes to home ownership. Thousands of country Victorians are excluded from the scheme, including those who live in Ararat, Stawell, Beaufort, Avoca, St Arnaud, Donald and Charlton,\u201d Ms Staley said.<\/p>\n
Despite Pyrenees Shire being excluded, a visit to the government\u2019s website on Wednesday revealed high-end locations like Daylesford, Yarrawonga, Clifton Springs and Torquay are eligible.<\/p>\n
Ms Staley said Pyrenees Shire has clearly been snubbed.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got a situation where we have strong property price growth which is cutting people out of the market, making Pyrenees Shire\u2019s exclusion from the scheme even more unfair,\u201d she said.
\nArarat based AME Systems has been a strong proponent for additional housing in the region for years.
\nManaging Director Nick Carthew said his business has found it difficult to attract new workers to because of a lack of suitable housing.
\nHe said he\u2019s gobsmacked so many towns like Ararat, Beaufort and Avoca don\u2019t qualify for the new homeowners scheme.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t understand why a regional centre like Ararat would be excluded from this, it\u2019s idiocy,\u201d
\n\u201cFrom an AME perspective, we\u2019ve been pushing the state government solidly for the last six to ten years to provide affordable housing for people,\u201d he said.
\nMs Staley said she will be raising the issue in the Parliament next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ripon MP Louise Staley has hit out at what she believes is blatant discrimination against prospective homebuyers in Pyrenees Shire. The State Government\u2019s Homebuyer Fund provides eligible homebuyers with a contribution of up to 25% towards the purchase price of their property, reducing their minimum required deposit to 5% and avoiding the need to pay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[33],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-5C","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}