A few weeks back I explored the idea that planning approvals are routinely blamed for Australia’s housing shortage – yet when we dug into the numbers, the story proved far more nuanced. This post I want to explore the interplay between housing supply and demand and to see what an update of the national charts…
Most people assume that if costs rise due to a shock – such as the current Middle East shenanigans – they will fall back once things settle. But economics and, moreover, business doesn’t work that way. Prices move up quickly with rising costs, but they rarely come back down in any meaningful way. “Up like…
Australia loves a big housing target. A million homes here, 1.2 million there – bold numbers splashed across press releases and podium backdrops. But the latest BuildSkills Housing Workforce Capacity Study makes one thing painfully clear: We don’t have the people to build the homes we keep promising. And nowhere is that shortage sharper than in regional…
For decades, Australia’s housing debate has obsessed over the usual headline acts: soaring migration, slow approvals, rising costs, NIMBYism, and a construction sector that can’t catch a break. All true. All important. But beneath all that noise sits one of the quietest, most powerful forces reshaping housing demand – the surge in single-person households. Living…
Our recent research on Australia’s future demographic shape helps to pinpoint an imbalance between the type of housing that is being built and what our key buying groups want and can afford. 6 district buyer segments in our market Young renters First home buyers Upgraders Downsizers Retirees The aged care market Our work suggests that…
Australia’s housing debate is stuck — too hard, too slow, too expensive. Yet elsewhere, solutions are working. Cincinnati backed zoning reform with real money. Texas front-loaded infrastructure. Vancouver taxed empties back into use. And New Zealand simply rewrote its rules. Bold, coordinated action can boost supply and affordability faster than any inquiry ever will. 1….
One of the most persistent myths in Australian housing is the idea that high and rising house prices are caused by “not building enough.” It gets repeated because it sounds simple, logical and convenient. But it’s wrong – and the data, including my own charts, shows why. Let’s start with scale, because this alone exposes…
There seems to be ongoing confusion about the role housing is playing in Australian inflation and whether the recently expanded 5% Deposit Scheme has anything to do with the current CPI pulse and the February 2026 official interest rate lift. Let’s start with the facts. Housing carries roughly 21–23% of the CPI basket. Within that, rents account…
One of the more persistent questions I get asked at recent speaking gigs during the Q+A that follows by babble, is “When the RBA lifted rates 13 times across 2022 and 2023, why didn’t housing crash?.” The chart suggests it should have has more impact. Historically, rising cash rates slow dwelling prices. Sometimes sharply. Yet post-Covid,…
After the RBA’s first rate hike, the housing crash narrative has predictably resurfaced. Once again, we’re told prices are about to fall – quickly, deeply, and more or less uniformly across Australia. The logic is familiar: higher rates reduce borrowing power, therefore house prices must fall. It sounds neat. It sounds intuitive. And it’s mostly…
