The proposed housing affordability package in the May budget will target people relying on social housing as well as those trying to break into the market.
New South Wales is the state that has suffered the biggest fall in available public housing stock since 2009. This has led to protests.
Teresa Parker/AAP
Although the federal-state agreement does it inadequately and lacks transparency, an enduring program of federal funding for operational expenses is essential to sustain the social housing system.
The homeless people evicted from Flinders Street in Melbourne’s CBD are only the tip of the iceberg of the housing crisis in Victoria.
Joe Castro/AAP
Weak state policies, which lack clear targets and mechanisms for providing more and better affordable housing, are part of the problem. Victoria still doesn’t have an affordable housing strategy.
On current trends, renters will eventually outnumber home buyers, representing a fundamental shift in how the economy and wealth generation work.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Generation Rent may force a complete rethinking of home ownership as a basis of our housing systems. Rather than representing security, these housing markets make us vulnerable.
To understand how households cope, we may need to look beneath broad patterns of affordability to the interplay of housing costs with other problems.
IDuke/Wikimedia Commons
Housing affordability is often not the only problem households face. More often the compounding effects of multiple problems leave people unable to cope, which is why one solution won’t work for all.
There has been a continuous wave of planning reform over the last ten years in Australia, and dwelling approvals in some cities are at long-term highs.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
To tout new housing production as the only solution to rising house prices, without examining the question of demand, is an ineffective policy position.
As well as meeting his UK counterpart, Philip Hammond (flanked by Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer), Scott Morrison has been talking with UK housing finance experts.
Will Oliver/EPA
Scott Morrison has been exploring a UK model for channelling investment via a specialist financial intermediary into new affordable housing provided by landlords with a social purpose. It makes sense.
This transit-oriented development in Oakland, California, combines residential housing with easy access to local transport options and amenities.
Eric Fredericks/flickr
A combination of transit-oriented centres, inclusionary zoning and a special rate on land instead of stamp duty could make housing more affordable by cutting congestion, development and travel costs.
The housing affordability crisis isn’t limited to the big cities – the Tweed Heads area, for instance, is rated worse than Melbourne in the latest survey.
AAP
Brexit and Trump pave the way for more financial market uncertainty.
The increasing proportion of children living in housing-related poverty confronts us with the question: what will we do about it?
Ollyy/shutterstock.com
Many children are living in low-income families that struggle to pay the rent to keep a roof over their heads. Unaffordable housing is fuelling childhood poverty, so where is the policy response?
For the increasing proportion of people living in private rental accommodation who can expect to be dependent on the age pension, the prospects of financial and housing insecurity are grim.
Any cyclical upturn in residential construction looks to have come to an end.
Mike Tsikas/AAP
US GDP data points to a US rate rise in December, and Australia’s housing affordability problem won’t be helped by current declining building approvals.
The government has changed the rules so that another foreign investor can replace one who has pulled out of buying an off-the-plan dwelling.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The government says its changes to foreign investment will increase housing supply and make it more affordable, but that’s relying on narrow and possibly incorrect assumptions about investors.
The problem with the current rezoning approach is that it leads to huge windfall profits and developments aimed at the upper end of the market.
AAP
The community needs affordable housing and that requires meaningful targets for new developments. The only ones who will lose out are landholders who make windfall profits from rezoning.
The Collective Old Oak co-living block in London has more than 500 apartments with bedrooms and bathrooms. All other spaces are shared.
David Hawgood/Geograph
While some forms of co-living seek to match modern lifestyles and a desire to downsize, other profit-driven models simply exploit a lack of affordable housing alternatives.
Treasurer Scott Morrison this week reignited the discussion about housing affordability in Australia. The question is: will the government be willing to bring forward meaningful reform?
Scott Morrison faces the risk of perceived failure if the federal government raises expectations then little happens.
David Mariuz/AAP
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University