Critical housing shortage looming: HIA

By Larry Schlesinger
Friday, 02 September 2011

The newly elected NSW government will need to take drastic action to improve the rate of houses being built in the state, according to forecasts by the Housing Industry Association.

The HIA, which represents the building industry, forecasts NSW will have a housing shortfall of 155,000 if houses continue to be built at the historical average of the past 20 years.

Even if the state picks up its home building rate from the current 40,600 to 48,600 per annum (a high building scenario), it will still have a shortfall of 84,000 houses by 2020, according to HIA modelling.

Under the same medium rate scenario, Western Australia will be 112,000 short of the number of houses it needs by 2020, followed by Victoria (104,200), Queensland (91,800) and South Australia (24,600).

The ACT is building just about enough houses annually, with an undersupply of just 1,400 houses projected by 2020 if building conditions remain unchanged.

Australia’s weakest housing market, Tasmania is the only state market building enough houses currently and is forecast to be in surplus (1,300) by 2020.

In total, the HIA forecasts a shortage of 500,000 homes by 2020 across the nation, should building rates not pick up.

Source: HIA (Click to enlarge)

At a local government area level, flood-damaged Brisbane is heading for a housing shortage of 25,000 by 2020 at current building rates, according to HIA.

Other notable municipalities heading for significant housing shortages in nine years’ time include Darwin (6,500), Sydney’s Sutherland Shire (4,700) and Blacktown (4,400) in Sydney’s outer west.

Not everyone agrees that Australia is facing a housing shortage.

Property analyst Michael Matusik says the residential market may be heading into oversupply due to an ageing population and the fact that family households are getting bigger.

Figures from SQM Research show a total of 49,466 vacancies nationally in July, only 1,000 more than at the same time last year.

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Comments (1) Add Comment

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written by KiwiJoe, September 02, 2011

Can someone explain what the definition of 'shortage' is, as it pertains to property economics?

"At a local government area level, flood-damaged Brisbane is heading for a housing shortage of 25,000 by 2020 at current building rates, according to HIA."

Does this mean 25,000 households worth of people will be living in Brisbane bus shelters in 2020? Or does it mean they'll move to other parts of the country? Surely any localised housing shortage is a short run academic issue only, as homelessness isn't a sustainable 'long run' option for most people. If it ever gets to the point where there are zero vacant properties in the country, I'm sure builders will find ways to justify taking the commercial risks related to increasing supply.

"Figures from SQM Research show a total of 49,466 vacancies nationally in July, only 1,000 more than at the same time last year."

To me, this sounds like over supply.