Build social and affordable housing to get us off the boom-and-bust roller coaster

Published 25th March 2019

Not long ago Australia’s housing boom was in full swing. Investors were betting on rising property values, which rose by 13% in Sydney and 15% in Melbourne in the year to mid-2017. Now the withdrawal of overseas buyers and prudential restrictions on loose lending to local investors have revealed how hollow the boom was.

Throughout the boom, politicians and property pundits consistently claimed the supply being delivered would improve affordability. As we are now seeing, when the price a property can fetch drops, so too does the desire to build it. It was rampant price growth that underpinned developers’ pleas to add supply, not a desire to make housing more affordable.

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Source:
Laurence Troy, Bill Randolph and Ryan van den Nouwelant, 2019, The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/au)