A push to make vendors responsible for pre-sale property inspections is a promising bid to win over younger voters ahead of a tightly contested state election, a pollster says.
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The burden of building and pest inspections would shift from prospective buyers to sellers under legislation the Victorian Labor government has vowed to introduce to parliament if it wins re-election in 2027.
The policy targeted a growing bloc of younger voters struggling to break into the housing market, Redbridge pollster Kos Samaras told AAP.
"Clearly it's a policy pitch towards a group of Victorians who are going to be very instrumental in terms of that election result," he said.
Victorians under 50 would make up close to half the state's electoral roll by the time voters went to the polls in November, he said.
Under the plan, sellers would be required to organise and pay for building and pest inspections before a sale and make the reports available to all prospective buyers.
At present, buyers tend to arrange and pay for their own inspections, with costs mounting if they miss out at auction or negotiations fall through.
The policy carried little political downside because it imposed relatively low costs on sellers, who tended to be older and less likely to change their voting behaviour, Mr Samaras said.
"If you're playing the maths game, you know who wins out of that," he said.
The Allan government has yet to provide detailed plans but says it will consult its counterpart in the ACT, where vendors can be reimbursed by buyers after a successful sale.
Introduced in 2003, the scheme has been a success for buyers and sellers, according to Real Estate Institute of the ACT chief executive Maria Edwards.
"It's created a fair system where, if something isn't compliant, that burden is not being transferred from one owner to another," she told AAP.
"It means buyers can move forward with confidence they've got a transparent product."
Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said the coalition would wait for more detail before deciding whether it would support the policy.
"I don't understand why the government is holding this up as a big cost-of-living relief exercise if they're not intending to implement it for Victorians now," she said.
Opposing it would likely come at a cost come November, Mr Samaras said.
"The coalition should support this policy if they're in the business of winning the election," he said.
Polling suggests the primary vote for both major parties has dropped into the 20s, with an insurgent One Nation largely claiming their support.
The coalition will need to net at least another 16 seats in November to form majority government and end Labor's reign after 12 years.
"I can see a road for Labor to win," Mr Samaras said.
"That road is much narrower for the coalition, but both are fairly challenging."
Australian Associated Press
