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.
Around one in seven Australia households either cannot get into housing at market rates or are struggling to pay the rent.
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One in seven Australian households is in a state of housing need. A shortfall in social housing supply means some are locked out of the market and others pay much more for rent than they can afford.
Most Sydneysiders are concerned about the effects of foreign investment on the local real estate market.
Dave Hunt/AAP
Only 18% of Sydneysiders think foreign investors should be able to buy property. They simply don’t accept arguments that this investment improves housing affordability by increasing supply.
Having embraced expert advice on bond aggregation to finance housing, Scott Morrison needs to ensure the Commonwealth commits to long-term investment and cooperation.
Julian Smith/AAP
People are taking on larger future risks and costs just so they can buy a house. Increases in new home owners are seen as a positive development, but what if they can’t afford the ongoing costs?
Treasurer Scott Morrison is eyeing bond aggregation as a way to finance social housing, but government funding is still needed under that model.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
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 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.
Generation X and Y are equally, if not more aggressive than baby boomers when investing in property.
Chris Devers/Flickr
Jenni Henderson, The Conversation and 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.
Scott Morrison has recently broadened the range of affordable housing policy options he’s considering, and moving beyond simplistic supply-side solutions would be a positive development.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
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.
Anne Power, London School of Economics and Political Science
There is a way to get homes where we need them, and it’s about making the most of what we’ve already got.
There has been a continuous wave of planning reform over the last ten years in Australia, and dwelling approvals in some cities are at long-term highs.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
To tout new housing production as the only solution to rising house prices, without examining the question of demand, is an ineffective policy position.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian needs to shed the Treasury view of housing construction as a silver bullet and back former premier Mike Baird’s social and affordable housing program.
Nikki Short/AAP
The new NSW premier is right to identify housing affordability as a priority for the people and economy of Sydney. It’s not just housing supply that’s the problem – action is needed on many fronts.
Any cyclical upturn in residential construction looks to have come to an end.
Mike Tsikas/AAP
US GDP data points to a US rate rise in December, and Australia’s housing affordability problem won’t be helped by current declining building approvals.
The government has changed the rules so that another foreign investor can replace one who has pulled out of buying an off-the-plan dwelling.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The government says its changes to foreign investment will increase housing supply and make it more affordable, but that’s relying on narrow and possibly incorrect assumptions about investors.
The problem with the current rezoning approach is that it leads to huge windfall profits and developments aimed at the upper end of the market.
AAP
The community needs affordable housing and that requires meaningful targets for new developments. The only ones who will lose out are landholders who make windfall profits from rezoning.
Scott Morrison spoke to the Urban Development Institute of Australia on housing affordability.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
The need for new housing solutions for these low-income groups is clearly a pressing requirement.
Only Tasmania and South Australia have introduced legislation that provides for minimum standards in rental properties.
Huguette Roe from www.shutterstock.com
With tenancy laws under review, a ruling that landlords must maintain residential premises in good repair even if dilapidated is hailed as a ‘landmark’ decision. That tells us reform is needed.
The rear of 30-32 Oxford Street, an area of Sydney affected by an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900.
Wikimedia/NSW State Archives
New research finds almost a million Australians are living in poor or very poor-quality housing, with more than 100,000 in dwellings regarded as very poor or derelict.
Before entering politics, Scott Morrison was employed to develop policy for the Property Council of Australia, which is now leading the charge against negative-gearing reform.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The default position for politicians is to sound concerned about housing affordability, but do nothing. This can be explained by the idea of ‘policy capture’, in this case by industry interests.
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University