Housing policymaking hasn’t gone smoothly since Tony Abbott sidelined the experts by scrapping the National Housing Supply Council in 2013.
Alan Porritt/AAP
Unaffordable housing and homelessness are burning issues. Policymaking has suffered from a critical lack of data and expert input since the National Housing Supply Council was axed in 2013.
Much of what is being built is straightforward ‘investor grade product’ – flats built to attract the burgeoning investment market.
Bill Randolph
The inexorable logic of the market will create suburban concentrations of lower-income households on a scale hitherto only experienced in the legacy inner-city high-rise public housing estates.
A couple of months isn’t enough to say the housing market is cooling.
AAP/ Tracey Nearmy
A variable special rate on new residential housing developments in selected centres could be used to create a local incentive to supply more affordable dwellings at higher density.
The Australian government has plenty of ministers, but not one of them oversees the whole $6 trillion housing sector.
Andrew Taylor/AAP
New research finds a state of confusion when it comes to Australian government policymaking on housing, despite its huge economic and social significance.
Driven by higher returns on their equity, debt-financed investors are dominating the housing market and shaping its growth.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
New research shows the actual returns on equity for housing investors are higher than most people realise. This helps explain why investors are able to out-compete other home buyers.
More competition between renters won’t help affordability.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The budget acknowledges the crisis of affordability for first home buyers, but fails to do enough about demand pressures on prices to put home ownership back within their reach.
Tackling housing affordability will be a priority for the Federal Government in the 2017 budget.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Only a small proportion of housing is affordable for low-income earners, while people on Newstart or Youth Allowance don’t have any affordable options at all.
The Turnbull government’s line that supply is the key to affordability finds little support among housing experts.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Housing experts writing for The Conversation largely agree on the government policies that are causing negative distortions in the market and the wider economy. And supply is not the key concern.
The financialisation of housing has become central to wealth creation in Australian households.
Andrey_Popov from www.shutterstock.com
We now value the house as a wealth builder, not just a place to live in and raise a family. The result is a distorted investment market that makes home ownership and rental unaffordable.
Generation X and Y are equally, if not more aggressive than baby boomers when investing in property.
Chris Devers/Flickr
Jenni Henderson, The Conversation e Josh Nicholas, The Conversation
Business Briefing: how the attitudes of the next generation are changing the property market
The Conversation18,5 MB(download)
There's been a shift in attitudes to the property market over generations, from owning a home as a right, to owning a home as a commodity.
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.
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
Landlords and property agents often apply ‘no pets’ rules even though many households see them as part of the family. Their difficulty in finding rental housing then becomes a source of great stress.
Good investment? What do your friends think?
Phelan Ebenhack/Reuters
Without long-term solutions to the imbalance between incomes and house prices, Gen Ys face a lifetime of renting without the financial and emotional security of home ownership.