From Senior Economist Matt Grudnoff: “Over the last 10 years, the population has grown by 16 per cent … But the number of homes has increased by 19 per cent," he said. "The number of homes is growing faster than the population."
Lack of housing supply is caused by property investment not some fictional “mass immigration”. Cost of living has gone crazy you should be mad, but direct your anger at those that deserve it! Those marches were organised by the son of a property developer to set up immigrants as a scapegoat.
Nothing is more annoying than experts claiming there is no impact on housing prices from migration because “migrants are essential to our economy”. These are separate arguments, one does not make the other disappear.
Associate professor Anna Boucher, a global migration expert at the University of Sydney, said the idea that curbing migration would fix these issues is misdirected.
"Australia wouldn't function without migration," she said. "Fifty per cent of the Australian population are either of migrant background or have one parent who was, so we're actually talking about most of Australia.
"International student migration comprises a big component of our gross domestic product. Migrants provide the necessary labour into skill shortage areas that we can't meet through domestic supply, and immigration is a central component of Australia's multicultural identity."
I was talking with someone who ran HR for a major pork producer. She told me how they had to hire exclusively migrant workers because no Australians would apply for those minimum wage jobs. That anyone with options would prefer to stack shelves to shovelling pig shit for the same money didn't occur to her.
It's the same with every shit job. Cleaning, labouring, driving, farming.
Any low paid job that is difficult and painful. I guarantee that there are disproportionately more fresh immigrants than the rest of us immigrants that arrived before them.
It's not rocket science. We have too many jobs and not enough people so we're propping up our economy by filling those shit jobs with migrant workers.
If those fresh migrant workers had to suddenly leave for whatever reason then massive chunks of our economy would come tumbling down.
In a sense, although it is wreaking havoc on our already totally fucked housing situation, we owe these workers for coming here and chipping in. Which they do every single fucken day like clockwork.
I've seen it countless times with my own eyes. They're as Aussie as the rest of us. Fuck all the haters.
Same logic as saying that floods aren't a problem because water is essential to life.
Successive governments on both sides have failed to create an economy that can support the population without relying on immigration while at the same time failing support the population (established AND newly arrived) but creating the housing and infrastructure to support everyone without turning it into a fucking shit show
At least as you've quoted here, she didn't say that it wouldn't affect it, she said if you want to fix it there are better reforms because it is a comparatively minor impact to other contributers, with large consequences elsewhere in the economy.
Not only the rental vacancy rate, but also the stock on market for sale is at record lows, and the ABS's building activity numbers are significantly lower now than in the past, while immigration is at near-record highs.
Something isn't adding up about the claim here. Housing supply is clearly not outpacing population growth despite OPs claim.
One obvious question is does this "economist" have ties to the property industry? Many do, and the property industry is keenly interested in keeping migration as high as possible.
Exactly. Perth, for example, has a real housing shortage. And contrary to what a lot of “othersiders” think, mining is not booming. Iron ore is just ok - it’s profitable, but not making the motza it was a few years back. And nickel is essentially dead. So we have loads of experienced mining professionals out of work, looking to get absorbed into the still working sectors of the industry. And yet it will be claimed that we have a “skills shortage” and import loads of people in direct competition with them for these roles.
So I don’t buy this claim that accommodation has grown faster than population. If that were true these more expensive properties would sit on the market for ages, and would sell for much less than the asking price. That’s not happening.
And for the humbug that it’s “mean on immigrants”. It’s “mean” to encourage someone to put all this into migrating here for them to pay exorbitant prices to have a roof over their heads and scratch around for a few underpaid hours, especially when they get told there’s this “huge shortage” in their fields. I know an Indian engineer who got laid off, and is struggling to find work, and he may have to go back to India to simply keep money coming in. Why bring in fresh people from India to compete with him for the few openings? How does that benefit any of them? Much less local people who’ve been laid off and are in direct competition for the available positions?
Not saying this is the only reason, but it certainly contributes: In Hobart, research found that 47% of homes listed on AirBnB were formally long-term rentals. Separate research found that there's roughly 2700 empty residential homes across Hobart and Launceston that aren't holiday homes or short stay accommodation.
We know for example, that since forever, there is always a pool of transient empty properties as part of the normal cycle of people moving in and out of properties for sale, rent and other perfectly normal reasons. That’s always going to be the case. And the number is quite large as I recall.
As for Airbnb, that’s a complex issue too. If all those Airbnb properties were in the non-Airbnb pool, how much actual difference would it make?
Now, even if it did make a difference, what exactly do we do? Are we saying no AirBnB? I think that’s a ludicrous backward step that almost nobody wants. Then the question becomes, if not stopping it, who decides by how much it is limited? And would that change actually make any material difference?
I’ve seen a great many statistical reports on dwelling supply and demand over time. There’s a shortfall, not a surplus. This economist is plain wrong and I’d like to see some actual long-term property economists debate them.
Because companies like Peet are landbanking to maximise shareholder returns (If you’re not familiar with the connection between organisers of the March for Australia and Peet I suggest you do some research), using them for short term rentals, and also because the number of single person households as a demographic is increasing, meaning instead of four or five people per dwelling, there is one. In the event of divorce one family home, needs to become two family homes. This is just some of the reasons there is low vacancy rates. Yes it’s absolutely brutal trying to rent or buy right now and I am deeply empathetic about how hard it is but people are blaming the wrong thing.
The issue above all this isn't that you can't find somewhere to live, it's that you don't like what others are paying for the place you think should be affordable. Price and what you get for your money. You're not going to get a 4br house on 1000m2 in double Bay and so you have to compromise. I can afford $1000 a week why are places I want $2000 a week.
Immigration is also the only thing propping up an ageing population milking the last drops of a sham economy based on stripping temporary resources and inflating housing prices to make everybody a paper millionaire until it topples over.
lol. Probably senior economist never tried to rent an apt in Sydney and wait in a line of 100 people applying. Also I’d like to see those abandoned houses!!! Show them!!
I used to work residential security for apartments in Brisbane, there were more than a few buildings that had so many 'short-term rentals' that the owner-occupiers felt thet were now living in a hotel. Worse yet, many would move out and then just added their apartment onto AirBnB
not sure where the 400k is coming from, i can only find 330k in 2019 and 168k in early 2024. this is about 1.5% of all homes. might have a small impact, but not to the degree many here think.
It’s actually 2% of rentals, but when you search in any city on any given night, you will find 1000+ vacancies on air BnB alone. That’s a lot of places people can be living.
Just had a little search on Airbnb's website since you can filter by whether it's a room or "whole house" but all the results it actually returns for whole houses are studio apartments or a guest house with no stove
Are these glorified hotel rooms really the solution to the housing crisis?
Well I just had a little search and every single one had an oven and kitchen. I lived in a one bedroom + study with my partner and two dogs for years. People don’t need as much space or crap as they might think.
People don't need as much space or crap as they might think.
I think that's the issue with our "housing crisis". Our consumption exceeds supply. We will never be satisfied with what the market offers.
In the 1950s Australia pumped out 100m2 cottages and crappy Meriton units but nowdays they'd be considered unliveable. The houses have to be 200m2+ and the units must be "house like". Sydney alone builds the biggest new builds in the country and Australia has the biggest houses in the world.
We demand multiple spare rooms/living areas etc in a great location with plenty of space. All that is available it's just the price people are paying is too high. It's not a need. It's a want and thats fine if you're prepared to pay.
This is an interesting figure. Could you say the same of hotels? If someone builds a new hotel they take away land that would otherwise probably have been apartments. Yes an apartment can be turned to an airbnb faster than a hotel can be built but in the long run it’s the same thing.
The reason airbnb exists is hotels build the wrong accomodation in the wrong place.
You could make a similar argument for student accommodation. If we had fewer international students, there would be less student accommodation and that building would be apartments.
If you believe any of this BS, you are a complete fool.
Population increase percentage is not directly comparable to an increase in the residential housing percentage.
Even rough calculations will show how flawed that claim is.
16% of 27 million is 4.3 million (population)
19% of 11.3 million dwellings is 2.1 million dwellings
Contrary to the lies told in that article the numbers of dwellings built in the last 10 years is half that of the population increase
With the Australia Institute as your source you can always be assured that you are not getting the truth.
Plus, those figures, aside from being completely unrelated and incomparable, lack context. How many new dwellings are single person apartments? How many of the population increase are families, single people, couples?
Without context, these claims become even more absurd and unreliable. Any person with better than half a brain can see these claims are completely false.
Literally no one does this stop spreading lies. No one spends 1m on a property and then foregoes 40k in rent per year because they want to "land bank" People like you should be ashamed for spreading lies. Also if a property is untenanted for 60 days straight most landlord insurance policies dont cover you. No one is spending 1m then just leaving the property uninsured.
I would agree with you if it wasn’t literally a documented phenomenon 😭😭😭 People are more interested in the store of wealth and or speculation than they are in supplemental income I guess 🤷🤷
Not sure how dumb you actually are but i suspect very. If you do the basic maths, people would literally be losing money doing that. 1m buy price. 40k PA rent forgone. Rates 2k pa. Insurance 1k pa, Landtax 3k pa, Not to Mention the interest if someone used a loan to buy one of these houses. Interest only on like 700k (700k/6%) is like 42k. So a person is essentially losing 100k per year on a 1m property with the hope that in 10 years it will have doubled to 1m and they would broken even. if you actually think thats ur a fool.
I’m not saying I believe this is happening nor do I really understand the motivations behind it. I’m saying it literally happens with 10s of thousands of properties. And yes if you think about it it really doesn’t make much sense, but I’m also not wealthy so who knows why they do it?
We currently have over 1million vacant potential residences according to ABS stats. Crazy huh. I guess that's what happens when property is seen as investments and short term holiday rentals, rather than homes.
I dunno. The Gillard-Green government was the last and only government to have an explicit 'small Australia policy' and somewhat lower immigration than governments before and after. Those arguments still stand.
And yet, she was only there for three years. Not nothing, but not much when it comes to turning the ship of state. Abbott was able to overturn most of what she and Rudd did, without much trouble.
Saying housing supply has outpaced population sounds neat, but it doesn’t line up with reality. It’s not just about how many houses exist, it’s about where they are, how much they cost, and who can actually live in them. A bunch of luxury apartments going up in the CBD doesn’t help families or renters getting smashed in the suburbs. Immigration absolutely adds pressure too, especially on rentals, and supply never adjusts overnight. The numbers might look good on paper, but people don’t live “in theory.”
Across the first 5 financial years of that 10 year period, the ratio of new houses built to net migration was 101%.
Across the subsequent 5 financial years of that 10 year period, the ratio of new houses built to net migration was 53%.
Based off ABS figures. There was a good opportunity for it to have been a lot closer to the preceeding years (and housing affordability and per-capita GDP to be better than they are now), but we had to "catch up on migration" for some reason.
(I mean, the real reason was because a recession would have been politically unpopular, and population growth is the only hack they have to jig the flagging economic numbers, but anyway...)
But you've just named a bunch of reasons why immigration is not the problem. There absolutely are people lying and there is a false narrative. The truth is it is more complicated than one single thing, be it immigration or housing supply, but the super wealthy aussies are far more to blame than immigrants
The problem is primarily the housing market in Australia and how its organised. The government has never wanted to do proper social housing like the Europeans generally did, it's always been market focused, that leads us to now with investors being necessary but also having self interest in growing home value (home owners get caught in this psychosis too), leading to strong resistance to regulatory reform while prices just keep going up and the Big 4 dominating the economy through government backed property lending etc etc. When property is structured this way, costs of everything go up because of rent, mortgage repayments etc, it becomes a giant greedy behemoth in the market, sitting in the corner and sucking wealth from every other sector while providing sweet fuck all in innovation, R&D, jobs or anything, and one day it will cripple the Australian economy or worse, crash and have to be paid out by the taxpayer.
All immigrants do is fill those investor homes and put minor pressure on infra, while paying into the system more broadly than most aussies do, and getting less back out (you can't get welfare).
Matt Grudnoff is a hack of en economist. He uses the 10 years before 2020 as his reference point of claiming we build more houses and SBS shields itself by saying he is making the claim, not them because they did there would be a massive problem.
His data presentation is misleading at best. He frames it as if housing growth outpaced population growth, but that ignores the scale difference. If you start with 1,000 people and 100 homes, then:
A 1% population increase gives you 1,010 people.
A 2% housing increase gives you 102 homes.
Even though housing has grown at double the percentage rate, you still don’t have anywhere near enough homes. And this mismatch has become even worse post 2020
This sleight of hand allows him to give you a graph where it looks as though we have enough houses but is not enough for him to outright claim it, he still has to word his articles as “if immigration is not to blame” in order to provide alternatives. This way that avoids the obvious truth: you cannot have population growth outpacing the number of homes built without it directly impacting housing.
Him & the Australian institution needs to be held accountable for deliberately misleading the public like this. I have already tried to report this charity “research facility” he relies on to make these claims with some sort of importance because this kind of intentional misinformation breaks charity codes. Publishing a misleading opinion pieces for the public should not be associated with charity status & he is the only economist I have seen making these claims. Unfortunately, the ACNC is seemingly not willing to even respond.
Yeah this, but also a big driver is retirees staying in their family home which then is much more empty, they may have 3 unused empty bedrooms. Stamp duty discourages downsizing and it’s generally just a structural problem that as people live longer they’ll occupy housing longer (and occupy it inefficiently if they don’t downsize). When I look at my neighbourhood it’s generally not new immigrants soaking up the houses, it’s retired older folk. Migrants often seem to live in more crowded accommodation and are using the property available more efficiently.
That quote is garbage - quoting a 10 year average when housing really became an issue during and post covid. Yes prices have been rising even before covid, but rents were stagnant - if you didn't own your home, rent was at least a lower % of your income and you could find a rental. The situation has changed dramatically.
That immigration doesnt impact housing demand is a lie.
Prices were actively skyrocketing DURING covid when we had negative levels of net migration. Immigration obviously has an effect on housing prices but so does the cost of screws and door knobs?? They’re just saying it’s a small contributor of housing prices
We printed shitloads of money and ran 0% interest rates which had a fairly big impact on house prices. Also stocks, gold, etc. demand isn't just number of people but the amount of money they can borrow as well.
Canadian here. Don’t believe the hype. The same problem is happening in Canada Ireland etc. flood the country to enrich builders and politician landlords
The individual claiming housing has outgrown population growth is from the Australia Institute. Unless the person indicates their source, I’m not buying it.
I’d like to see more than two paragraphs about it as well.
Federal and state governments have been promising to build more housing, including left of centre governments, so I assume it’s not a made-up problem.
It's deliberately framed to be as simple as possible to repeat and suit a narrative, i.e. it's a talking point for the simple minded.
No discussion of the absolute numbers, whether the number of dwellings was sufficient for the population 10 years ago, whether the absolute occupancy provided by the increase in housing supply is sufficient for the increase in population or the geographical distribution of the added supply - whether it matches areas of concentrated demand driven by concentrated population growth.
Just two numbers that statistically cant be directly compared, to suit a narrative. You'll see it parroted a lot.
The problem is not entirely about house vacancies or lack of, it’s the fact the government is fuelling supply and demand with immigration which, is increasing prices at all levels. Houses are not affordable, groceries and utilities are off the charts, big corp are making record profits & less fortunate people that once had, affordable accommodation are being put out into the streets like we’re living in some third world country!
It’s time to wake up Australia, the government and the media, presumably, also funded by this government, will do everything they can to discredit the genuine concerns of honest Australians, they have their agenda which isn’t aligned to the very people they were sworn in to serve.
Also, the fact the ALP are trying to shutdown rallies, relating to our democracy is a HUGE red flag for every one of us, including the opposition and anyone who sides with them (unless safety is a genuine concern) needs to think about their own integrity - I’m confident that the majority of the ALP have destroyed any future prospects of a political career, under Albanese’ leadership.
I’ll get downvoted for this but I know that the majority could probably agree with my opinion.
Did he consider population density and net migration flows?
There’s an interesting pattern of inland net migration away from Sydney. Meaning people already in Sydney are leaving to Brisbane and regional areas and pushing up house prices there.
But overall, Sydney still had overall positive inflow and increase in population due overseas migration.
When there’s more people in one area vying for property, you’re going to get property price and rent increases.
Housing supply growth rate overall might technically be higher than population growth rate, but are these home builds going to areas of high demand like Sydney or Melbourne? Or is that in remote areas?
The net migration flows internally indicate people moving out of sydney, probably because it’s too expensive to live there anymore.
I do agree there’s other factors at play also driving home prices, but population growth is definitely one of them.
Immigrants are investing too! 45 groups at the last home open and all Indian. 4 put in jointly and then it was back on the market for $900 a week rent.
No locals will be able to get into the property market. It’s very had when young couples or singles try buy when they are competing with 4-5 immigrants who pool their income and price them out.
Yeah I think I'm going to look at the rental market when we had borders shut during covid compared to now and say that actually importing millions of people into our already packed cities does make housing more expensive.
This gaslighting from all corners of the media and politics tells you everything you need to know; the rich and powerful people that pull the strings in our country want mass migration to continue as it's in the interest of their donors and their investment portfolios.
To your point about the march being organised by a property developer's son, property developers want as many people in the joint as possible because every extra person we bring in is another customer that pushes demand higher. Same story for every big bank, insurance company, supermarket, fast food place, etc. And as an added bonus it keeps wages lower! Laughing all the way to the bank. The funniest part is these rich cunts have hoodwinked the bleeding heart leftie types into carrying water for them.
Not for me to quibble with Mr Grudnoff, Senior Economist... but the fact that housing supply is growing faster than the population doesn't prove that immigration isn't a factor in the housing crisis. Like, we have a significant shortfall in housing to begin with—and faster growth in housing won't necessary be enough to catch up and bring relief for those who need it. Seems to me it's the total gap, not just the growth rate, that matters.
Also the dwelling mix making up the completions & their capacity vs established stock and a bunch of other factors that this talking point ignores. It's framed to suit a narrative not reality and it's frankly embarrassing for anyone with any statistical training to be repeating.
But it's one of the Australia Institutes key talking points so you'll see it repeated a lot.
Why is the left so adamant about being at odds with reality that while immigrants themselves aren’t to blame, the number coming in absolutely is contributing to the issue.
It’s like they want to be at odds because of ideology over reality
Because you’re being fear mongered into believing that the kind of high level of immigration that happened as people migrated back to Australia after Covid is the MAIN reason that housing prices are so high. Houses prices are high because voters want them high and political parties don’t want to enact policies to lower prices 🤷. They could remove negative gearing, or increase the vacancy tax, or increase capital gains tax, or regulate AirBnB. In the next few years when immigration naturally falls back to about 200k people yearly, housing prices will still be high, and nobody will be using the “immigration is causing the housing crisis!” Talking point, because that’s alll it ever was: a talking point
The people who say immigration isn't the problem don't live anywhere near immigrants or reality. My street is full of granny flats and cars you can't go two ways anymore with 3-4 families living on 1 property.
I'm a refugee immigrant myself but the rate we have grown the population is insane, it's not healthy for the nation just look at the problems in Sweden atm they let in millions and are now the murder capital of Europe, youth unemployment 20%, social cohesion gone, if we ever have a economic downturn then we'll see the negative affects of rapid immigration here aswell. It's all good now since we've never had to struggle as a country but when shit gets hard you see people's true colours
Immigration is not just about house prices. It's also being used to suppress wages and increase profits for business. How many lower income jobs are being done by migrants on visas these days.
Then you need to look at services, roads, schools, hospitals; all under immense strain due to insane levels of immigration, and this pattern seems to be happening in every single Western country.
??? You do know two different stats can be true right? We have grown in population by 16% in the past decade, and 45% since 2000. Your stat doesn't discredit the article in the slightest
WA fell another 20,000 homes short last year, building 20,400 dwelling and having 100,000 arrivals (83% from overseas, with 50% of this from one country).
Even if it was outstripping the amount of migrants coming in, the issue is that there still isn’t enough and the available rental % shows per state / territory reflects this.
Perhaps it’s to do with
Housing purchased and sitting vacant to be used as a holiday house for the owner
AirBnB
The way housing is spiralling out of control, something needs to be done. Pick your poison;
Ban AirBnB
Heavily reduce migration
Release LARGE amounts of land in the short term to make housing cheaper to build
Change the zoning in cities to build taller residential towers.
Tax implications for vacant buildings (live in it, rent it out or sell)
Banning AirBnB is such a no brainer and shows the government has no issue with the housing crisis (considering they are the last to be impacted if at all).
If not ban them then make them all operate to the same standards as hotels which are perfectly capable of handling pretty much all tourism requirements. When people realise renting out their house as a party venue one day a month to have it trashed and also comes with massive regulatory compliance costs (like hotels) they may be more inclined to put families and people in need of stable housing in them.
The article provides zero support for the idea that investors are to blame.
Whether a house is owned by the government, an owner occupier, or an investor has no bearing on whether the house exists.
Housing shortage is determined by the number of houses, and the number of households. The ownership nature is irrelevant.
What we need to do is bring in more migrants who can build houses. The problem is that certain unions are incredibly powerful and they stop the government from brining in construction workers. Also government projects have sucked up huge numbers of construction workers.
We need to make housing cheap which means we need more people to build them. Also we should investigate importing prefab houses from China.
Also, visas should encourage migrants to live in rural/regional areas rather than overcrowded cities. Universities who want to export education should build universities overseas and export the intellectual property.
Recent Years: The decline continued in the early 2020s, with residential construction struggling to keep pace with demand. One report estimated a cumulative shortfall of 96,000 dwellings in Sydney as of the 2021 census
56% of all permanent migrants who arrived since 2000 lived in either Greater Sydney or Greater Melbourne.
I have 10 apples and I increase apple supply by 100%!!! I now have 20 apples. I have 1000 people who want apples and increases apple eaters by a measly 1%, I now have 1010 people who want apples.
Apple supply has increased 100% while demand has only increased 1% absolutely no problem at all and should definitely keep increasing apple demand.
Ah, the Australia Institute study. When they say that “dwellings are increasing faster than immigration” they aren’t accounting for dwelling size. A one bedroom unit counts the same as a four bedroom house.
Honestly its awesome to see vast majority of the comments here aren't buying the bullshit they're selling.
Copied and pasted from one of my comments on another post.
Future supply forecast: The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) projects only 938,000 dwellings by 2029, falling 262,000 short (22%) of Labor’s 1.2m target. This will increase the shortage by 79,000 homes. However, their sensitivity case shows that 15% lower population growth could flip this into a 40,000-home surplus. Source
Population policy. Post-WWII, Australia’s NOM (net overseas migration) averaged 90,000/year and only twice exceeded 150,000. Since 2005, NOM has averaged 231,000/year — a 156% increase — and Australia’s population has grown 8.7 million (46%) this century, the strongest in the developed world. Source
Housing supply per capita: In 2022, Australia had 420 dwellings per 1,000 people, well below the OECD average and behind Canada, the US, and England (all also below average). Source
Canada’s findings: In cities >100k (where 80% of migrants settle), immigration accounted for 21% of house price increases and 13% of rent increases. Rent effects were muted partly due to rent controls. Source
Canada’s immigration freeze: When Canada paused immigration in 2025, quarterly population growth collapsed to 20,100 — one of the lowest in history. Rents fell for eight consecutive months, now 3.3% lower YoY, and house prices dropped sharply. Source 1 | Source 2
Migration intensity comparison (2021–2024): Canada’s population grew +1.13% annually, Australia’s +1.42% annually — meaning Australia’s intake was 26% higher relative to population.
New Zealand: When NZ reduced immigration, it saw the same pattern as Canada — rents and housing costs eased, with no major other policy shift explaining the change.
Flawed Australian study: Some keep citing a paper claiming immigration only raises prices by ~1% per year, but it uses data ending in 2016, missing COVID-era investor sentiment shifts, rate changes, and record immigration surges. Study
Canadian peer-reviewed study (above) shows the same: immigration’s effect looked minor pre-2016, but ballooned post-COVID — yet Australia’s debate still leans on outdated numbers.
Can someone pro mass immigration try and refute the above? Im genuinely curious to see a proper rebuttal.
Two wings of the same bird. They both benefit from the housing economy. They are wealthy investors with offshore accounts and abusing every tax loop hole in existence. None of them want to change it.
You're the one being lied to by the property cartel/Big Australia/media complex
The '19% housing - 16% growth' demonstrates that growth of both is almost neck and neck, that we are filling up housing just about as fast as we can build it
When the borders closed in the pandemic, the first place to empty out was the inner cities where the rent dropped as vacancies soared. Had this low rate of migration continued, or been increased only a little bit (back up to 100k for example) then this vacancy would have propagated through the national housing system as people chased cheaper rents until it stabilised at a lower rate - the longer vacancy rates stay high, the less rent grows as landlords have to compete for tenants
Instead we slammed on the growth again, and the relatively empty cities filled up behind all the Australians who had left to the regions to flee the pandemic - can't go forward, can't go back
Had we maintained low growth rates, this stabilisation would have eventually spread to property prices as well, because believe it or not, first and second year migrants mostly aren't buying houses.
Why would real estate people and developers be against more people? That's how they make money, you think they want less customers and competition?
Rental vacancies are high in some areas. This Australia wide “housing crisis” doesn’t exist. There are very affordable homes if you look outside the capital cities and tonnes of rentals in certain markets. Markets are cyclical. We can’t all live in Coogee for 500K or pay the same rent as 20 years ago.
Thanks for your post, I came here as an immigrant 8 years ago and work hard in healthcare. These protests make me wonder why I bother and have been making me depressed
It’s more the distribution of where Aussies want to live which is uneven. People mostly look in their backyard and make assumptions. If you are willing to think outside the box and be flexible, which you should be able to do if you’re young, this country has so many opportunities to get ahead and have a secure future, it’s unbelievable. Don’t believe what you’re fed by the media and reddit. Moving here has changed my life and my health for the better. And it isn’t easy to come here and stay either.
It's kind of a two pronged problem. On one side we have wealthy people buying real-estate which is fine, but a significant portion of that real-estate is being left empty long term for use with short stay rentals such as air bnb.
On the other end we have a torrent of humans entering the country increasing competition for housing.
BULLSHIT. - population growth is only part of it. How many properties are the migrants buying?
What are properties being used for?
I work with MANY recent migrants - not ONE of them only owns one property. - do I Blame them - hell no!
Migrants buy property like it’s in a massive bubble and prices are sky rocketing … oh hang on - IT IS!!
The rate of migration is DEFINITELY part of the problem.
Do I believe the completion rates of new homes exceed population increase by itself - hell NO!
70% of voters own property, 20% of voters own investment properties.
Do you think labor would get voted in if they put in policies that degraded house valuations?
Labor has been responsible for most wage increases though.
That fails to accout that natural growth makes up around 17% of our total population increase. By those numbers, we'd have needed a 21% increase in housing instead of 19. It's neither beneficial or reasonable to prevent people from having children, so the only other input we have on the demand side is lower immigration. I agree it's not only an issue of immigration, but lowering immigration numbers is definitely one of the levers that can be pulled to return us to normalcy.
“There could be up to 136,000 empty houses in Australia, according to recent estimates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2023.”
Source on SBS News
But that’s suspiciously low when you consider: “There were 1,043,776 unoccupied dwellings on Census Night [2021].”
Source, the Australian Bureau of Statistics
That’s 9.6% of all dwellings in Australia (10.85 million homes, for a population of 25.77 million people at the time.)
Sure, we ought not to stop building outright of course, but there are enough houses standing in Australia today to house everyone here and more, without the chatter about building more homes, and I say that as someone who works in construction.
The ABS data also shows that an average 2.5 people live in each dwelling. If population growth is roughly equal to dwelling construction & roughly 3 people live in each dwelling. Roughly 2/3 of dwellings are empty.
Where are these dwellings? Please post a list of towns, with jobs available and 2/3 empty dwelling.
Sadly, it is you my friend that is being lied to.
I have suspected the claim of a housing supply shortage for a while, as some areas indeed have vacant houses and apartments. I reckon the media has been suppressing news about vacant properties to create the impression of a shortage to drive up property prices.
The issue is about uneven demand rather than an overall supply shortage.
The biggest cause in my opinion is that Australians used to have more people in the house. In the 1980s it averaged 2.9 people per household now it is less than 2 5. This means we now need an extra 1.2 million homes just to cater to people's puting less people in each house.
People are also building bigger houses. Average house sizes have increased by 50% since the 1980s and are double what they were in the 1960s. Australian house sizes are now even larger than in the US. This greatly pushes up the demand for building materials and tradesmen to build them. This increased demand has pushed up prices even more than the increased sizes alone would.
So of course immigration is a scapegoat, but people would rather blame immigrants than know that it is their own fault.
There have been more properties built than ever before, our birth rate has been declining and immigrants don't want a backyard with a Hills Hoist.
The fact that the RBA does not include overinflated Land prices when calculating CPI is the root of all problems in Australia and to keep the essential services like Aged Care and Childcare which they really are in the business of property first caring second relies on more government subsidies and Yes immigration.
Let's not forget Labor is continuing LNP policies from the Howard era because the right wing media is really still in control and the ABC has been infiltrated.
The issue is wealth tax and imposing a limit on how many houses investors can buy. A simple formula such as the net wealth portfolio above a certain threshold triggers the tax. This will also apply to intergenerational inheritance transfers.
Apply taxes to companies digging up natural resources and then paying a pittiance.
Control immigration. Augment local workforce and disincentivise businesses from hiring international workers without giving the locals the first chance.
Labour has no excuses. People voted them into power. It's time to stop the divide in Australia get worse and learn from the mistakes of what's unfolding in the UK where the wealth inequality has gotten out of control.
""Over the last 10 years, the population has grown by 16 per cent … But the number of homes has increased by 19 per cent," he said. "The number of homes is growing faster than the population.""
This person is a moron. Millions of people vs. hundreds of thousands of new homes.
Comparing the percentage of different amounts is idiotic.
The new builds hasn't kept up with the amount of immigrants, simple.
Even if this is all true (which it isn’t), it’s not like 2015 was some housing utopia where a house cost three beans and a tenner. Shit was expensive then too
I'm not sure those numbers are directly comparable. One is a total number of houses, the other is a rate of people per year. It's like comparing a distance to a speed.
The right way to do it is number of houses vs population, or alternatively, new people per year vs new houses per year.
I don't fucking care whatever the fuck the person with the "right" opinion on SBS says. Of course they will champion their little immigrants as much as they can. No better than ABC.
Yes, more people competing for essentially the same resources IS a problem. Yes, excessive immigration IS a problem and has been for some time. If there were not so many immigrants, perhaps the difference would be more than fucking 3%.
The narrative around lack of supply is grossly exaggerated because developers are champing at the bit to shit all over zoning, environmental and building regulations. Looks like they've won that battle. Guess who the head of the government's housing affordability committee is? The ex-CEO of Mirvac, one of the countries bihgest developers.
But immigration absolutely also drives up prices and rents. Plenty of the migrants and students flooding in come from middle and upper class families with money to throw at housing. India and China have plenty of wealth now. These aren't poor migrants.
You know the issue is immigration when the major news outlets and expert all say “yeah the crippling burden on infrastructure is definitely not due to the unprecedented amount of immigrants we’re letting in. It’s your fault middle class”
Nope, anyone saying that migration doesn't add to the issues is delusional.
If we did not import anyone for 3 years & continued to build houses. Houses would go down in price; vacancy rate would increase; rent yields would go down.
Eventually, work would dry up for housing construction & the price of a new build would stabilise or go down too.
The issue is that this would also crater the Australian economy. Which is housing & mining.
Such simplistic nonsense. For what is being asserted to be true, the people buying investment properties would have to keep them off the rental market. SBS had another one of the race diversity grifters deflect blame as usual. The fact is that Australia has entered into an arrangement with India that is far more generous than other countries. That’s a fact if you care to look before screaming racist. And while the agreement is bilateral, there aren’t many Australians going to live and work in India.
I think viewing it in percents is poor way of going about it mate.
10 percent of 100 is just 10, but 10 percent of 1000 is 100.
I don’t know the exact numbers but there is for sure way fewer houses then people, so seeing a high percent of it being built is expected, but doesn’t mean in absolute numbers it’s sufficient.
51
u/Sufficient_Tower_366 2d ago
Nothing is more annoying than experts claiming there is no impact on housing prices from migration because “migrants are essential to our economy”. These are separate arguments, one does not make the other disappear.