Liberal Party's housing policy gets a mixed response in the south-west

The housing policy announced by Scott Morrison at the party campaign launch on Sunday would grant first-home hunters access to up to $50,000 of their superannuation to buy a home.

Mr Morrison also proposed a scheme to allow over 55s to inject up to $300,000 back into their super to downsize their properties and increase housing supply.

Silvan Ridge Wealth principal Steve Harris said he had some initial concerns about the first home buyers plan.

"We are always mindful that the primary reason for superannuation is to fund people's retirement, so we have some initial concerns there's no doubt about that," Mr Harris said

"However, that's balanced by a creative way to look at allowing people to look at getting into the first homebuyers market.

"But then you look at the actual mechanics of the scheme and it's probably going to be of limited value to a lot of people by the same token."

He said first homebuyers in their early 20s may have as little as $10,000 or $15,000 in superannuation, and 40 per cent of that was probably not going to assist them all that much.

"We always have concern when it's looking at accessing superannuation early, which is primarily what provides for our retirement," he said.

However, Mr Harris said he welcomed the move to allow downsizers channelling up to $300,000 into super.

"Any way of ensuring people can top up super I think is beneficial for sure," he said.

Ludeman Real Estate's Mark Dwyer said while he hadn't read the details of the proposal he said he was for anything that got first homebuyers into the market.

But without looking further into it, Mr Dwyer said he couldn't say whether he was 100 per cent in favour of it.

"Property is a good solid investment," he said.

"What people have got to remember though is if they're tapping into their super, they're tapping into their retirement."

Mr Dwyer said he was always cautious about giving assistance to people because it brought more people into the market and "of course it's going to force the prices up".

"But if you don't help young people out then they struggle to get into the market," he said.

For governments it was a "catch-22" situation and "a fine balancing act", he said.

As for people over 55 being able to downsize their homes and direct $300,000 of it into their super, Mr Dwyer said he didn't really know what to think.

"By then you should nearly have, or starting to set yourself up, for retirement. I suppose if you can put $300,000 in to help out down the track, again, it's probably not a bad policy," he said.

Association of Independent Retirees president for the south-west branch Rod Carter said the concept was good for downsizers.

But Mr Carter said economists were sounding the alarm on the idea to allow first homebuyers to tap into their superannuation because it would increase house prices.

He said that if you took $50,000 out of super, after 20 years the amount of interest you had missed out on could be as much as $105,000.

"That's a lot of money that you've lost out of your superannuation over that period," he said.

"They're going to say you would have made it up with capital gains on your house but let's face it, at the moment house prices are astronomical, they're going to come down.

"The capital gain one would expect to get on a house in 20 years' time is going to be nowhere near the amount you have lost because of the compounding effect of taking that superannuation out."

He said he was more in favour of Labor's plan which proposed the government would take a 40 per cent stake of a new home to reduce the amount buyers had to pay back to the bank.

Labor's proposal would be available to 10,000 recipients per year to individuals with salaries less than $90,000 or couples earning less than $120,000.

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