A property investor has hit out at young Australians who complain about baby boomers.
Craig Doyle, 61, from Melbourne‘s western suburbs, owns five investment properties worth $3million, which are paid for from his superannuation.
Despite this, he said being a landlord was far from easy, estimating he has lost $100,000 on land tax, council rates, compliance costs, unpaid rent and interest rate rises over the last decade.
Mr Doyle hit back out at younger generations’ apparent resentment towards boomers and landlords, which is only getting worse as millennials and Gen Z are priced out of the housing market.
He said it stems from the fact that his generation are, for the most part, still active, healthy and engaging in the economy – whereas 25 years ago everybody expected they would be piling into nursing homes by now.
‘I find it distasteful,’ he told SBS Insight during a panel discussion about the financial impact of the so-called ‘boomer economy’.
‘I remember the notion 25 years ago that we were going to be the biggest debt to this country because we would all be going [into] retirement and needing nursing homes.
‘I find, now, that the fact that we’re not, and the fact that we are able to look after ourselves, there’s still this pent-up animosity towards us.’
Craig Doyle, 61, from Melbourne’s western suburbs, told SBS Insight he had purchased five properties worth a total of $3million using his superannuation fund
‘My wife and I got together later in life and 10 years ago we decided that a way forward was to invest in property,’ Mr Doyle said.
‘We went down the line of investing in three separate properties through our superannuation policy and take up the benefits of doing that, but unfortunately the last four or five years has seen an increase to interest rates nationally.
‘The pricing market for the properties we bought have dropped in the backside, we were losing $15,000 a quarter running our investment properties. So we had to come to the decision to opt out of all of them and we’ve lost money on them.
‘All of them had body corporates, land tax, new upgrades of apartments, people not paying their rent, interest [rates] goes up three or four times a year.
‘You can’t regain the money. All of a sudden, you’re churning superannuation, and it’s going out the door before it’s coming in.’
Mr Doyle said he was selling his investment properties ‘one by one’, with one apartment sold last month and another on the market.
He had hoped to build his capital base by investing his superannuation into property – but said it had actually reversed their ability to retire.
‘We would be grey-nomadding by now, but that’s been pushed back four or five years. It is what it is,’ Mr Doyle said.
Mr Doyle said boomers had ‘set the basis of wealth’ in Australia’s economy and that his generation shouldn’t have to pay more tax (pictured a sold sign in Canberra)
The term ‘grey nomad’ refers to retired Australians, typically over the age of 55, who spend their time travelling in a caravan or motorhome.
Mr Doyle criticised the Victorian government for increasing land taxes on investment properties in an effort to pay down the Covid-19 debt.
The tax hike will last for the next 10 years.
‘We’re the ones being demonised. It’s unfair that the government is taxing my generation. The baby boomers did well because we worked hard,’ he said.
‘The government has overspent, they’ve overcapitalised. They’re going after the people they perceive have money. But why do we have to pay these taxes to make up for the state government’s bad management?’ he told the Australian Financial Review.
Mr Doyle said boomers had ‘set the basis of wealth’ in Australia’s economy and argued his generation shouldn’t have to pay more tax.
‘Trying to understand why that’s something that’s held against us is really concerning. I’ve paid tax all my life, I was taxed when I was a paper boy all the way through to where I am now,’ he said.
‘I struggle to understand how we as a group of people have to pay more. Why?’
Insight’s ‘The Boomer Economy’ is available to stream on SBS On Demand now.