Community Land Trusts - A Grounded Approach to Housing with Karl Fitzgerald Artwork

The Room Xchange Podcast

Welcome to Australia's Premier Housing and Rental Podcast. Ludwina Dautovic, CEO and Founder of www.TheRoomXchange.com, hosts an engaging show dedicated to tackling the pressing issues of housing affordability and the rental crisis in Australia.

With a staggering 13.5 million unused spare bedrooms across 10 million homes nationwide, we, as Australia's sole verified house-sharing platform, present a unique solution to address these challenges. These untapped housing resources, often owned by individuals facing multiple interest rate hikes, hold the key to unlocking affordable housing for everyday renters.

Our podcast serves as an essential voice, shedding light on the scarcity of rental supply in various cities, leaving countless individuals without access to affordable housing. We are committed to offering practical solutions and showcasing how our platform provides an instant remedy to the housing crisis, with positive impacts on the environment, society, and sustainability.

What sets us apart? Not only our innovative service but also our exceptional podcast guests. We take pride in featuring industry leaders from the rental and housing sectors, along with government representatives, who share invaluable insights and expertise.

Our podcast creates a platform for our community to share personal stories, fostering understanding and awareness in a supportive space. Beyond entertainment, we firmly believe our podcast makes a genuine difference in the lives of everyday Australians.

Join the conversation and let's work together to make a positive impact on the future of housing in Australia. Subscribe now.

➜ To find out more go to: www.theroomxchange.com
➜ Email: admin@theroomxchange.com
➜ All Social Media: @theroomxchange

All Episodes

The Room Xchange Podcast

Community Land Trusts - A Grounded Approach to Housing with Karl Fitzgerald

November 04, 2022 • Karl Fitzgerald - Director, Grounded • Season 2 • Episode 18

About Karl Fitzgerald - Economist and Director of Grounded

Welcome to The Room Xchange Podcast. I’m Ludwina Dautovic and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Karl Fitzgerald about Community Land Trusts.
Karl Fitzgerald is an economist specialising in land economics and works as the Director of Grounded - the Community Land Trust advocacy body. He led Prosper Australia's research for 18 years. He is also Treasurer of the Malmsbury Village Fayre, a volunteer with the local farmers market and loves making rhubarb amaro.

A message from our host - Ludwina Dautovic

This conversation took me by surprise. I first met Karl Fitzgerald at a recent Prosper event. I'd never heard of Prosper before or the idea that land could be leased to build upon. Call me naive, but with the entire conversation in the media being about home ownership in Australia, it's a little hard to imagine there is another way.

Karl and I go in depth about the process of Community Land Trusts. I used my lack of knowledge on the subject as a presupposition that the listeners might not have too much knowledge on it either.

I hope you enjoy this episode. I welcome your thoughts and opinions on our social media. All links are below.

"Society is so busy playing the monopoly board game that they can't see how they are being played by monopolists IRL" - Karl Fitzgerald

In this episode we discuss:

Rhubarb Amaro
How his brother's cot death led to the founding of the Sudden Infant Death Research Foundation which today is known as Red Nose Australia.
He discovered Georgism and got involved with Prosper Australia and helped build the company back up.
Prosper Australia has been around since 1890 and was born out of an American economist called Henry George.
How Grounded is setting up Community Land Trusts to enable people to have access to affordable housing
Karl Fitzgerald produced a documentary called 'Real Estate 4 Ransom'
A CLT means that you only pay for the building of the house, not the land it's on so it massively reduces the cost of housing
Why are we experiencing a rental crisis?
When did affordable housing become a privilege and not a right?
We should be giving tax incentives to nurses and childcare workers as opposed to land developers
13.5m unused spare bedrooms in 10m homes across Australia - existing housing stock
We need to shift the conversation around how we can fix housing
There are also 1.1m vacant homes around Australia. To replace that stock would cost $650m
Charge higher rates for vacant homes - vacancy tax
Vacant land banks that are being held by investors
in 2022 Australian land prices increased by $994 billion!
Corporate renters will be the new housing trend