if you're referring to the fact that we are an entire continent, most of Australia's inland is uninhabitable desert.
Having said housing problem comes from lack of developments more than anything.
Having said housing problem comes from lack of developments more than anything.
Not really. People would be jumping all over building new housing to solve their housing woes if that were the problem. That isn't really happening because new houses cost even more!
Realistically, the root issue is prolonged high employment coupled with our failure to bring much automation to home building. If people were desperate to accept any work that they can find, the cost of construction would be decimated, but so long as construction remains relatively unattractive work to a workforce full of choice it needs to pay a lot to convince anyone to do it; a cost that gets passed on to home buyers, and eventually renters by association.
> That isn't really happening because new houses cost even more!
Could it also be a factor that wealth is extremely concentrated at the top, and the people at the top own a vast outsized share of the land. 25% of the properties in Australia is held by the top 1%. People who own a lot of property are getting fabulously wealthy when the median home price is $950,000AU, just not people who need to put a roof over their head.
As before, the problem is that people in need of housing can't afford them. If they could afford them, they'd just build a house already and the whole housing problem would be solved. But when new houses cost even more than the used houses they already can't afford...
I would argue it's more to do with the various incentives encouraging the financialisation of property. Low interest rates, discounted capital gains rate, negative gearing, lack of regulation around short term rentals, etc.
Ultimately, with the proven lack of political will to address these incentives, I believe that the only thing that will fix this problem is sustained higher interest rates.
Housing problems come from legislation that promotes housing as an investment.it also comes from protectionist legislation that keeps the profits of housing and realestate investors safe. Long list of contributing factors. Almost entirely artificially created. Things such as but not limited to, foreign ownership laws, negative gearing, investment incentives, lack of supply, consistent growth in demand and so on.