Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Tag: Housing Affordability

We Need A Different Conversation About Australia’s Housing Supply

Talk of increasing the supply of housing to increase housing and rental affordability is only pedalling private financial interest and obfuscating the real problem.

During a recent appearance on the ABC’s Insiders program, the Australian Greens’ housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, cited the figure of more than 1 million vacant homes to argue the Greens’ case for curbing negative gearing and tax concessions for property investors.

Since then, media pundits have picked through the latest (2021) Census numbers in an effort to discredit his argument, all the while letting the “more supply” argument proliferate unchecked. And while the Member for Griffith may be overstating the numbers, he is not wrong in asserting that “we have enough homes for people to live in.”

Read the original article at architectureau.com

Shock Sum Parents Need To Give Their Kids To Buy First Home

Australian parents will have to shell out increasingly large sums of money to help their children buy homes or risk them never making it onto the property ladder.

In decades past, buying a home was a relatively solitary thing, a goal set and achieved either as a single person or as part of a couple, but now buying a home has increasingly become an affair involving parents and other relatives.

According to investment and advisory group Jarden Australia, 15 per cent of borrowers are receiving an average of $92,000 from parents.

Aussie Housing Shift: Embracing Vertical Living In Cities Amidst Challenges

The dream Aussie lifestyle has traditionally been synonymous with owning a home with lots of space. But Australia’s housing crisis is sparking a trend towards vertical living in its cities

Australian homes have long ranked among the most spacious in the world.

Having several bedrooms, a study, and a big backyard for entertaining guests around a barbecue is a common aspiration for most Aussies and one that has historically been easily attainable.

Yet the vision of the Australian dream home is disappearing amid a housing crisis that is forcing developers to build up rather than out.

Don’t Scapegoat Migrants For Housing Crisis, Warn Housing Organisations

Forty housing and homelessness organisations have warned Australian leaders not to blame overseas migrants for government problems.

Major community services groups across Australia have signed a petition to the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader conveying their concern that new migrants are being inaccurately painted as the driving cause of the housing affordability crisis.

A total of 40 organisations, including National Shelter, the Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) and the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia (FECCA), wrote the letter in response to “disturbing rhetoric” linking the housing crisis to migration levels.

Maiy Azize, spokesperson for Everybody’s Home and coordinator of the letter, said that it is “nonsense to blame overseas migration as a primary driver of a housing crisis that has been decades in the making”.

The ‘Great Australian Dream’ Shattered: Unprecedented Housing Crisis Hits Australia

In what is being described as an unprecedented housing crisis, Australia is witnessing the disintegration of the ‘Great Australian Dream’ of home ownership. The crisis, underscored by skyrocketing property prices and inaccessible home loans, is reshaping the nation’s identity and causing distress, particularly among younger generations such as Gen Z and millennials. Housing, once perceived as a right, is increasingly being treated as an investment, leaving many without a glimpse of financial independence or housing security.

Foreign Property Investors To Be Hit With Higher Fees

The federal government has announced changes to the foreign investment framework in an effort to boost Australia’s housing stock.

In an effort to boost Australia’s housing stock and provide more homes for Aussies, the Albanese government has announced higher foreign investment fees for housing.

“Higher fees for the purchase of established homes, increased penalties for those that leave properties vacant, and strengthened compliance activity will help ensure foreign investment in residential property is in our national interest,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers said in a statement.

At the same time, he announced the government will cut application fees for foreign investment in build-to-rent projects to support the delivery of more homes across Australia.

Read the original article at www.investordaily.com.au

Australian Housing Wealth Is Meaningless, Destructive And Fundamentally Changing Our Society

High-priced homes do not create wealth, Alan Kohler says, they redistribute it. Now financial success is largely a function of geography, not accomplishment

My parents were married in 1951 and, with a war service loan, bought a block of land in South Oakleigh, eight miles from Melbourne’s central business district.

I don’t know what my dad was making then, but he was a carpenter and apparently the average wage of a carpenter in 1951 was about 80 shillings a week, or £350 a year. And judging by average prices back then, they would have paid about £1,000 for the land. (By the way, the median house price had more than doubled in 1950, recovering from the big fall caused by price controls during the second world war, on which more later.)

Dad built the house himself, including making the bricks, working on weekends and at night, and Mum and Dad lived in a garage, to which I was brought home when I was born and where I spent the first three years of my life. But if they had bought a house and land package, which was rather more common than building it yourself, they would have paid about £1,250. So, like the median family at the time, they would have paid about 3.5 times household income (Mum didn’t work) for their first house, which was about average for the time.

Read the original article at www.theguardian.com

Australia’s housing crisis is “only going to get worse”

REA Group’s Economist Anne Flaherty warned that Australia’s housing crisis is “only going to get worse” as demand from strong immigration continues to far outrun housing construction.

“Over August we did see approvals increase by 7%. But compared to 12 months earlier they were actually down over 20%”, Flaherty told Sky News Business Editor Ross Greenwood.

“This is really problematic if you think about the fact that our population is growing so rapidly”.

“We know that over the 12 months to March, our population increased by 563,000 people. So, unless approvals pick up the issues, we’re seeing with undersupply at the moment are only going to get worse”.

“Unfortunately, building approvals are your best-case scenario of how many homes are going to be developed. Because the reality is that just because a property is approved for development does not mean it is going to get off the ground”.

Read the full article at macrobusiness.com.au

Australian Households On Six-Figure Incomes Can Now Only Afford 13% Of Homes

New report shows housing affordability has reached its lowest levels in decades as market continues to rebound

Rising interest rates and surging home prices have seen Australian housing affordability crash to its lowest levels in decades, according to a new report.

A household earning the median income of $105,000 can now only comfortably afford 13% of homes on the market, the lowest share since the relevant data was first collected in 1995, according to property data company PropTrack.

Three years ago, the median income household could afford almost 40% of homes – which includes houses and units – for sale.

Australian Housing Crisis: Nation to fall more than 60,000 short of target in first year: HIA

Australia is on track to fall more than 60,000 new homes short of the 240,000 total needed in the first year of an ambitious new housing affordability crisis-busting program.

And a leading economist has warned to get the numbers up state governments will need to encourage foreign investors, reconsider property taxes and slash planning timelines.

The Housing Industry Association’s National Outlook released today forecasts just 178,839 new apartments, townhouses, units and houses will be built next year.

In 2025 the projections suggest only 195,105 homes will be added to the nation’s housing supply.

Read the original article at news.com.au