The policy focus remains on home ownership, but a new survey shows slight improvements in affordability do little to help people on low incomes. Their plight calls for better social housing policy.
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Articles on housing affordability
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There are more than 1.3 million young Australian voters in NSW, but they feel excluded from traditional politics. To win the youth vote, politicians must address the key issues that matter to them.
It's natural to assume that a downturn in the property market is good news for people who've been priced out of the market. In practice, they might still not be able to buy a home.
Affordability is a problem across Sydney for prospective home buyers. But if they are able to become owners, new research shows affordability becomes much less of a problem over five to ten years.
While share houses are more a matter of financial necessity than choice, many older Australians are discovering it has unexpected social benefits for them.
The thing about new housing is you need land to build it on. Developers are able to control its release at a rate that doesn't put downward pressure on prices.
Short-term letting via digital platforms benefits some in the market at the expense of others. Closer regulation might be needed in Melbourne and Sydney, where a permissive approach prevails.
Governments should stop offering false hopes and pandering to NIMBY pressures. As well as increased public and private housing supply, growing cities need well-designed higher-density development.
Cities overseas that have been able to overcome the affordable housing challenges facing cities like Melbourne have adopted a coordinated and systemic approach to scaling up solutions that work.
A national survey shows councils know much of the housing in their local areas isn't affordable. But providing affordable housing is not a priority because they see it as being beyond their means.
Property prices have soared in the past decade, but much more modest increases in rent, with the exception of Sydney, suggest less of an imbalance of supply and demand for housing as a place to live.
Migrants have similar home ownership rates to the overall population and rely less on public housing. But housing supply shortfalls and higher prices have reduced ownership among recent migrants.
It's said Australia's housing affordability problem is the result of new housing stock not keeping pace with population growth. But there is actually enough housing, so why can't the poor afford it?
Housing affordability has declined significantly over the past few decades. Slowly reducing negative gearing and capital gains, and switching to property taxes, could reverse this trend.
In Sydney, a 'latte line', that runs from the airport to Parramatta and up to the northwest, divides white-collar jobs from blue-collar jobs. This perpetuates inequality.
Foreign investment in Australian property has plummeted by more than half, signalling an apparent end to the China-fuelled real estate frenzy. Along the way we learned some useful lessons about boom and bust.
Housing affordability is one of Australia’s great unsolved problems. Some households can make adjustments to cover high housing costs, but the ones deprived of essentials are under real stress.
Even though house prices have risen substantially over recent decades, housing affordability for those with mortgages or own their houses outright hasn't worsened
Environmentalists and climate hawks are cheering, but many experts aren't excited about the state making rooftop solar panels mandatory on most new homes beginning in 2020.
The clichés about housing supply and regulatory restraints are distractions from the need to focus on expanding the affordable housing sector to directly meet the needs of low-income households.
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Top contributors
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Director, Henry Halloran Trust, University of Sydney
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Professor of Economics, School of Economics, Finance and Property, Curtin University
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Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Sydney
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Program Director, Master of Urbanism, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney
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Associate Director - City Futures - Urban Policy and Strategy, City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW
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Fellow, Grattan Institute
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John Daley is a Friend of The Conversation.
Chief Executive Officer, Grattan Institute
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Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
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Emeritus Professor of Housing and Housing Studies, RMIT University
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Director, City Futures Research Centre, Faculty of the Built Environment, UNSW
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Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University
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Visiting Senior Fellow - City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW
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Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW
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Professor of Urban Planning, University of Melbourne
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Professor of Economics, UNSW
