As rents surge and thousands face housing insecurity, statistics suggest almost three in 10 houses are empty in parts of Queensland's Gold Coast, while the national average is 10 per cent.
She said while some property owners could afford to pay the levy and keep properties empty, a significant number of homes would be added to the rental market.
Although it was at a lower tax rate of 1 per cent, Mr Fotheringham said it did not make much of a dent in unoccupied dwellings being opened up to renters. "If you take those two cities as pretty close to approximations of each other, one with that kind of vacancy tax and one without, they're about the same."
"The proportion that is actually land banked, which is really what we're aiming at, people who own a property and plan to leave it empty long term."Mr Fotheringham said owners who could afford to leave a property empty might prefer to pay a vacancy tax.
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