Friday, March 29, 2024

Tag: Housing Affordability

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

Michael Pascoe: “I’ve Found the Missing Housing – Half a Century’s Worth”

You know all the handwringing about the housing crisis, the claims that “it’s complicated” and that “there’s no silver bullet” and the broad resignation of not having a solution?

Well, I’ve found the missing housing and know what the real solution is – if any government cares.

We’ve arrived at the present housing disaster rather like the Hemingway character explaining how he went bankrupt: “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.”

The “gradual” part of the crisis started half a century ago when governments began to withdraw from providing public housing.

That gradual withdrawal turned into a speedy exit since the turn of the century, finally disastrously exploding under the cover of COVID as the nation found itself with a critical shortage of accommodation and an unsustainable model of housing prices forever dramatically rising.

Read the original article at TND

Aussie House Prices Shift Onto Slow Track

It is commonly stated that it takes seven to ten years for property values to double.

However, according to analysis from PropTrack, the typical Australia took 15.4 years to double in value through May 2023.

PropTrack director economic research Cameron Kusher also noted that macroprudential regulations such as serviceability buffers have also reduced access to finance in recent years while keeping price growth in check.

“Rising interest rates and much higher prices, along with other economic and demographic factors, will weigh on the prospects of prices
doubling in the future”.

Kusher is right: Australian home values should rise at a much slower rate over the coming decade and beyond.

One-In-Six Australians Live In Apartments & Townhouses

  • A new report found up to 26% of Australians could be living in strata-titled properties
  • There has been a 7% growth of strata-titled properties in the last two years
  • This reflects both government policies and people’s current preferences

At least one in six Australians are living in strata titled properties such as apartments and townhouses and there’s been a 7% growth in the number of properties in the last two years, according to a new report from the University of New South Wales.

Professor Hazel Easthope, who led the research project team at UNSW, says both Australia and New Zealand have seen rapid growth in strata-titled dwellings in the last two years.

She adds strata-title property ownership began in Australia in the 1960s and has since become an important feature of the housing landscape across Australia.

Young Aussie Calls Out Major Housing Myth Spread By Baby Boomers

A young influencer is challenging baby boomers who suggest ‘lazy young people sipping lattes’ could buy a house like they did 40 years ago.

Jack Toohey has made A video breaking down the differences between buying a home in 1983 and 2023.

Baby boomers are often fond of reminding the young how they paid 18 per cent interest rates in the 1980s, but they fail to mention that typical house price compared with average incomes were significantly cheaper when they bought four decades ago.

Toohey has demolished their misleading claims and misinformation with facts and figures comparing real estate values and earnings.

Housing Affordability Is Deteriorating and There’s No End In Sight

The latest decision of the RBA to increase the cash rate by 0.25 basis points will further elevate mortgage stress and reduce borrowing capacity for homebuyers across the country.

Released today by the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre at Curtin University, the ‘Housing Affordability in Western Australia 2023: Building for the future’ report has revealed the alarming extent to which housing affordability in WA has deteriorated in the last two years.

Private sector rents in WA increased by around 13% in the last year alone and rising interest rates have inflated mortgage payments for existing homeowners. Rising house prices, lower borrowing capacity and increased mortgage repayments have negatively affected prospective buyers.

The report shows that the mortgage delinquency rate has more than tripled for new homeowners who took out loans in 2022 compared to those with earlier loan vintages.

What Killed the Housing Construction Industry?

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that the backlog of residential construction work has blown out to a record $53 billion.

The value of house building work that is yet to be done has risen to $22.8 billion, while the value of apartment construction work in the pipeline has topped $30.7 billion.

Meanwhile, ASIC data shows that nearly 1500 construction companies have shut down since 30 June, putting the year on pace to be the worst in at least ten years.

Earlier this week, the National Housing Finance & Investment Corporation (NHFIC) released its State of the Nation’s Housing report, which forecasts that demand will exceed supply by 124,100 dwellings over the five years to 2028 amid record net overseas migration..

Australia Faces Three Housing Crises — What Are They?

A new whitepaper finds that interest rates are not the primary driver of the movement in house prices.

The ongoing housing challenges in Australia are comprised of related but separate crises, according to the latest whitepaper from PEXA Research and LongView.

Putting into perspective the drivers of house prices based on decades worth of data, the whitepaper identified three related housing crises currently happening in Australia: purchase affordability, rental affordability, and rental experience.

PEXA CEO Glenn King said containing the analysis of the housing crisis to just supply-demand arguments would only yield simple solutions that, he believes, would not be enough to work.

“What we have sought to do to is forensically analyse Australia’s unique demographic and urbanisation profile to help explain Australia’s upward trend in house prices over so many decades,” he said.

Continue reading the findings of the whitepaper at yourmortgage.com.au.

Boomers, Generation X or Millennials: Who has it worse when it comes to buying a home and paying it off?

When single mum Kerrie Boylett wanted to buy a home in 1995, almost all lenders turned her away.

Ms Boylett is now retired and aged 68, but back then she was 40, and had a nine-year-old daughter.

“It was a lot harder for me to get a loan as a single person and a woman — it was practically impossible,” she tells ABC News.

Ms Boylett eventually convinced one lender to give her a loan. She bought her first home in Coogee, NSW for $150,000, with a deposit of 15 per cent (which she says was based on a decade of her saving).

Her variable interest rate was a massive 19 per cent and her income was low, making it a daily struggle to afford to live.

“It was really hard, really hard — I mean, I remember once I had the electricity cut off for three days,” she recalls.

Read the full article at abc.net.au

More social and affordable housing is the only solution to Australia’s rental crisis

A boost in social housing benefits everyone – people in housing stress get the homes they need and building new homes creates jobs and opportunities

For the first time, Australia is entering the new year with a prime minister who grew up in social housing.

Yet as Australians face a rise in living costs, soaring rents, and crashing vacancy rates, we are also bidding farewell to a key housing affordability measure.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) was designed to help working people who had been priced out of renting, allowing them to create a stable home for themselves and their family.

The scheme wasn’t perfect – it was based on incentives and payments to landlords – but its end will mean thousands of affordable homes will disappear with no plan for the people who were living in them. Renters leaving the scheme will enter a rental market with record low vacancy rates. Data released this week shows a 10% surge in rent prices across capital cities. Many won’t be eligible for social housing, and those who are will find that waiting lists are years long.