Tax uncertainty keeps build-to-rent investors away, developers say

A lack of clarity around lower taxes for foreign investors in build-to-rent housing – three months before rules announced last May are due to come into effect – is making potential funders sit on their hands, holding up development of much-needed housing, developers say.

Sam Tarascio, whose Rich List-family company Salta Properties has ambitions to create a $3 billion BTR platform, said the federal government’s delay in creating draft legislation showing how a halved withholding tax for overseas investors would work was putting potential funders off.