You missed the point.
Comparison between countries is not valid, as they have very different home ownership methods. The Laws around renting in most European countries would scare most property investors in Australia. Long terms leases are normal and I mean 20 years or more, where try and get longer than a 12 month lease here easily. In fact I think it may be illegal in some States.
I agree 100% that as a Nation we need to ensure that people are safely housed in quality housing. We have always endeavoured to make sure that any rents we charge are affordable and my experience is that when you get a reliable tenant you should support them.
Seriously if I was Emperor, I would fix our housing problems in six months. The fix is easy, it is just hard politically to implement.
Further to @Bacchusfox’s point, If you look at the population change over the last 60 years, this also may have something to do with it…
Belgium, Netherlands Norway, Italy and Greece have all had flat population growth, or even declines, since 1980. Australia has nearly doubled in population. So clearly much higher demand side “pull” that would make it harder to own a property (albeit with arguably much better opportunity to supply housing, due to relatively less development overall, if the policies were adjusted right - and that includes housing supply away from cities rather than concentrating it all in the same few major cities).
Netherlands, which has experienced a growth in population over the last few years, has also been facing a housing crisis recently too (according to the papers).
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Even in the most wfh-friendly industries, the number of people who work from home permanently is a tiny minority. Most companies that went wfh over the pandemic out of necessity are grimly intent on winding it back. Mandatory office attendance for a couple of days a week is kinda the white collar norm now, but from a housing market point of view, that’s functionally indistinguishable from no work from home at all.
The state govt got absolutely gifted a solution to a lot of intractable problems with the rise of wfh, pity they ■■■■■■ it up against the wall to keep the cbd commercial property mafia happy…
Yeah but does a “high speed rail” make property cheaper?
I don’t think so and I don’t think its fixing the problems of an affordable home.
It will cost you 700k+ to build a house in Sydney/Melbourne as it will in Ballarat.
But really the problem in Australian housing isnt price - that will self correct on demand.
The problem is WHO owns most of the homes. It is too heavily geared towards investors - namely existing property that isnt being improved to provide more.(ie a build of units)
Theres very limited social benefit in people owning more than one home.
Rent seeking behaviour hollows out the middle class of a country.
Its why this country has a productivity problem.
