While new buildings may be the glamorous eco-home pinups, retrofitting existing homes is the main game when it comes to creating energy-efficient, comfortable housing stock for all Australians.
A remote community in the Cape York region of Queensland.
Decent housing underpins the Closing the Gap goals, with a decade-long national remote housing program having made measurable progress. If the Commonwealth pulls out now, hard-won gains could be lost.
A new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows home ownership rates have collapsed: today, just one in four middle-income millennials will own their own home.
It’s the housing sector that could do most for winter health.
Prime inner-city land, such as the Flemington estate, is being sold to developers to build new housing, but the public lacks basic details about these deals.
Artist's impression, Victorian government
The Victorian government isn’t alone in seeking private partners to renew public housing. What is notable is its lack of transparency by comparison with such arrangements elsewhere.
Developers will now be responsible for dealing with noise issues from nearby music venues – but it will take real community activism to prevent closures.
Over the past year, there has been a surge of enthusiasm in Australia for developing a sector of large-scale institutional landlords.
AAP/David Crosling
There is a risk that affordable housing policy may be colonised by for-profit interests if Australia imports the wrong rental housing ideas from overseas.
There are some risks, like a crash in the price of Bitcoin, that are more certain than others in 2018.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
The odds are that we get through 2018 without war, mass capital flight, or a housing crash. But all the risks are medium probability, and the consequences could be dire.
Flatpack housing in Gateshead, UK.
Owen Humphreys/PA Archive/PA Images
Mass production with a touch of customisation could be the best future for affordable homes.
Thousands of co-housing projects in cities around the world have shown how people can get together to create diverse homes that suit them and their community – this one is in Portland, Oregon.
Kevin Turner/flickr
City residents all around the world are getting together to create housing tailored to their needs and budgets, instead of being developed for maximum profit.
Local residents of St Andrews feel university growth has come at too high a cost – it’s time for local councils and universities to overcome the divide between town and gown.
Politicians like Malcolm Turnbull try to target middle class Australians.
Lukas Coch/AAP
The Australian government has at last taken the lead in affordable housing policy with a package of measures that should attract institutional investors hungry for low-risk returns.
Only the national government can solve the housing crisis – but local authorities can make a big difference in their communities.
While people in WA might be spending less, there remains segments of the population that are vulnerable to intense cost of living pressures.
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Households in NSW spend the most and WA households the least in Australia, but there are segments of WA who are feeling the bite more acutely in cost of living.
A real estate sold sign hangs in front of a west-end Toronto property. Canada’s newly announced housing strategy contains scant measures to help first-time buyers in pricey markets.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy
Canada’s National Housing Strategy leaves a large segment of the population that must find a way to afford housing in the private market. More initiatives are needed to help first-time home buyers.
Unless governments tackle the housing affordability crisis, the poorest Australians will fall further behind.
AAP
Rising housing costs are hurting low-income Australians the most. The gap in home ownership between rich and poor is widening, house prices are rising fastest at the bottom and rental stress is rising.
A homeless man sleeping rough in the city. More and more older people will be homeless on current trends.
flickr
The rising number of older Australians is exposing the shortage of housing options and services to meet their needs, putting them at increasing risk of homelessness.
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University
Professor of Social Epidemiology and Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne