Experts discuss affordability, housing insecurity and homelessness, among several issues
The challenges in the housing sector should be formally declared a crisis to facilitate a comprehensive strategy for resolving these issues, a bank economist has stated.
During a discussion moderated by Caryn Kakas, ANZ’s head of housing strategy, experts voiced their concerns over the issues, with Richard Yetsenga (pictured above), chief economist at ANZ, stressing the urgency of addressing the crisis by enhancing town planning and new housing supply.
“We need to work harder on new supply,” Yetsenga said. “We need to work harder on planning restrictions. We’re not the only economy trying to build more dwellings.
“But I don’t think we will go anywhere close to genuinely being on the path to resolving this issue until we accept that town planning and new supply are insufficient.
“We need to label this a crisis. And when you label something, a crisis, then you can start to say ‘let’s not start by ruling things out’. Let’s just say everything’s on the table and let’s actually work out where we can start to have some movement and where we can actually deliver.”
Recent increases in both mortgage and rental costs are significantly impairing housing affordability across the UK, according to the latest ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report. The study indicates that the median income earners are now spending around 30% of their income on rent, up from the mid-20% range.
Eliza Owen, head of research at CoreLogic Australia, highlighted the ongoing issues caused by the crisis, including heightened housing insecurity and homelessness. She pointed out that current solutions are slow to impact the crisis, particularly those addressing net overseas migration.
“The rental crisis is happening now, and I think it’s just leading to more insecure housing, homelessness,” Owen said. “It’s almost like triaging the resources to homelessness services and the people that need that support the most – as the sort of short-term resolution. Or trying to address some of it.”
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Jess Caire, Property Council of Australia’s executive director, underscored the need for a coordinated approach to housing, suggesting that simplifying the transition between different types of housing could ease some challenges.
“It’s about making sure that we can make it as easy as possible for people to move through the housing typology,” Caire said. “You’ve got people who are in four-bedroom homes eager to downsize. We’ve got to remove all those barriers. I think the challenge that we have is, is we’re looking at things in individual silos rather than this holistic ecosystem and in a more coordinated effort.”
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She added that overcoming the crisis requires a collective commitment to eliminating obstacles and experimenting with new approaches to expedite housing supply.
“There has to be a commitment to boosting supply and removing the roadblocks and giving ourselves permission to remove, break down the barriers, and to try things that we haven’t tried before in order to get supply to market faster,” Caire said.
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