Move in or pay up, mate: Australia slaps tax on 'ghost homes'
But property experts say it's easy to hire someone to come in and turn on switches and taps, making a place appear lived-in
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Sydney
ON a wet, midweek evening when most Australians are home cooking dinner, less than a third of the lights are on in the apartments in Melbourne's Docklands. Most shops and restaurants are closed. The only people passing through seem to be on their way elsewhere.
These "ghost towers", as the high-end residential property with three-bedroom apartments costing almost US$1 million have been dubbed, are popular with Chinese investors who mostly live abroad. Their darkened blocks loom as sparsely occupied symbols of a property market where even solidly middle-class households have increasingly found themselves priced out.
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