It’s not the first time Australia has grappled with concerns about affordable housing. History offers insights that can help inform contemporary debates and policies.
In the second part of our review of what The Conversation experts have to say about housing, we focus on affordability, social housing and what government can do about a growing crisis.
The government’s unwillingness to consider changing the tax system to fix housing affordability, makes it more likely that APRA may have to become even more prescriptive with its lending criteria.
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.
New rules offer the possibility of an inclusive Australian society that enables people with the highest disability-related support needs to have equal access to mainstream services including housing.
Victoria has been lagging behind other states in developing an affordable housing strategy. Now that one has been released, how well does it meet the needs of households on lower incomes?
The housing supply solution our leaders are advocating will only work if affordability is simply a problem of supply. In fact, Australia is almost a world leader in rates of new housing production.
Our big cities increase incomes faster than population growth, but most residents miss out on the extra income growth. Creating multiple centres of activity may help make bigger better for everyone.
Any attempt to improve security for tenants should not deprive them, or their landlords, of the flexibility that many also want. The key problem is landlords’ ability to give notice without a reason.
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.
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.
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