Housing affordability becomes less of a concern in the years after buying a house, especially for people who bought a decade or more ago.
Paul Miller/AAP
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.
You can’t build housing without land, and developers typically control the rate of which it’s released to stop prices falling.
Lukas Coch/AAP
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.
Eliminating stamp duty would bring on more real estate transactions, but that might not be a good thing.
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It’s still mostly a case of ‘buyer beware’ when it comes to finding out about a property. But many buyers feel they should be told if, for example, it was the scene of a violent murder.
More families are living in high-rise apartments.
from shutterstock.com
Urban policies are based on assumptions of a “normal household” and what buildings for it should look like. So this research project explored how people feel about children in high-density housing.
If you want to separate investor demand for property assets from demand for affordable housing, rent is a better indicator than property prices.
James Ross/AAP
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.
Only in the past couple of years has housing construction got close to matching population growth in Sydney and other big cities.
Brendan Esposito/AAP
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.
A single-room occupancy (SRO) hotel in Chinatown in Vancouver, B.C.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
One problem with Airbnb is that it isn’t transparent about how many properties are truly ‘shared’ and how many are just part of a letting business. Regulators need to know that to manage the impacts.
Will Sydney’s property market calm down now? Don’t bet on it.
AAP Image/Joel Carrett
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.
In the 1980s, Australian geographer Maurice Daly exposed the urban planning system as a policy toolkit developers could capitalise on to drive subdivision and speculation – an insight that remains true even today.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Essays On Air: Australia’s property boom and bust cycle stretches back to colonial days
The Conversation, CC BY58,7 MB(download)
Australia's property market is slowing and many are contemplating a possible bust. But today's episode of Essays On Air reminds us that since colonial days, Australia's property market has had its ups and downs.
The argument that stronger supply will deliver more affordable housing isn’t borne out in areas where new unit and apartment construction is booming.
Joel Carrett/AAP
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.
Older and poorer Australians aren’t benefiting from negative gearing.
AAP
Increasingly insecure pathways to home ownership are not just a problem for property markets. The fallout is likely to hit retirement incomes, the welfare base, gender equity and the broader economy.
In the past, house building matched high immigration. Construction has increased, particularly in Sydney, but needs to make up the backlog of a decade of undersupply.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Australian governments are faced with a choice: make the difficult decisions to fix planning systems so more houses can be built, or tap the brakes on Australia’s migrant intake.
New affordable housing development in Melbourne.
Ryan van den Nouwelant
Based on research comparing projects across the country, a new assessment tool calculates cost-effective ways to fund affordable housing to meet specified needs in different markets.
Nurses who care for people in the city can’t afford a property anywhere near their place of work.
didesign021/Shutterstock
People on moderate incomes, including police and emergency workers, have been forced to seek housing on the city fringes, far from their places of work. But there are ways to reverse this trend.
Australia got in first with restrictions on foreign investors in housing, but Jacinda Arden’s new government plans to go further.
Daniel Munoz/AAP
Concerns about foreign investors driving up housing prices have been growing. Australia was first to bar foreign purchases of existing residential property, but New Zealand is set to go further.
State premiers like Gladys Berejiklian need to have a much sharper policy focus on delivering social and affordable housing.
David Moir/AAP
Yet again the evidence shows supply is no cure-all for affordable housing. All levels of government in Australia need to concentrate on housing for low-income renters in particular.