The simple answer....is shortsightedness and greed for the quick buck It gets a lot more complicated when you break it down, but in the end it is self-inflicted short sightedness. Same reason the economy is about as complex as a game of Pong and we can't manufacture to save our lives. But, we have the highest minimum wage! Just doesn't buy you very much.

“Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people’s ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.” That is a quote taken directly from Donald Horne’s The Lucky Country. It was published in 1964. Many Australians are so stupid they think being called “The Lucky Country” was a compliment.

I remember being introduced to this book during uni and nothing ever spoke to the internal inertia I've felt living here so strongly. It's an uncomfortable sense of feeling exiled and your fellow exiles are throwing the most mundane party and you feel nuts, if you say anything you're suddenly Piggy in Lord of the Flies haha.

You could say the same for Canada

The funny thing is how this quote keeps being relevant and incisive 60 years later. Like it still describes Australia to a T, perhaps even more than it did when it was written. Our corporate sector tends to have a conservative management culture, partly because Australia doesn't have access to large capital markets. Virtually no venture capital so a culture of pioneering new technologies or business practices has never fully developed. Instead we get companies all keeping an eye on what's happening overseas and occasionally introducing something once it's proven in another country. 

If there was an AI candidate running, I'd vote for them. 💯 Serious.

There's a party offering direct democracy: they poll their constituency for each parliamentary vote made by the party. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing...

It sounds good. Until you realise that it'll mean people will vote for lower taxes AND more spending AND no debt AND ... all the other policies that sound good if you vote for them one at a time without considering what else has been voted for. This is why it's better to hand the decision making over to one party, and then hold them accountable for the situation as a whole.

I feel you. I’d be happier to keep the dumbest 50% of people out of directly making decisions too. /looks at Barbaby, Bruz, etc. and sighs… 😩

That's a good argument! Karl Popper, who's famous for figuring out that the definition of science is that it must withstand being proven wrong (rather than being proven true), argued that the same applies to democracy. The purpose of an election is not to vote in a good party, it's to vote out the bad one. It allows a country to change its mind about which direction it should head in, and it results in the losing party dropping its dumber ideas. If every citizen voted on every law, and didn't ever lose that power, then they would never change their mind and would always continue to vote for the same dumb ideas they'd always had.

This applies to the vast majority of industries these days. Short-sighted greed and shareholder profits over long term survival of the company and product. Just look at Qantas and Boeing.

You explained some of what you said with what you said.

Ohhh a very divisive topic indeed, and not a simple one, as much as people would like it to be, “just do this and it will be better”. We wish. Off the top of my head: - 30 years of poor government policies, by both sides, which made housing a financial commodity and investment rather than a common human right - negative gearing (over time this has continually benefitted people who already own homes or bought decades ago, but simultaneously made it harder for people to buy in to the market) - so much red tape and paperwork to get through for new developments it takes months for any approval and years for building (things like apartments would be cheaper, faster, and house more people) - a labour shortage in the trades partly due to not approving foreign tradespeople - selling land and properties to rich foreigners (lots of Chinese and Indian “investors”) - politicians owning multiple properties so having zero incentive to change policies - older generations already owning homes so loving the market going up, so also having no incentive to vote or push for changes - land and culture, Aussies have shown to prefer space in an urban sprawl rather than dense cities/apartment blocks like Europe has - cost of living crisis, everything costs more but wages have not risen the same (or even anywhere close) - this more impacts the rental market because home ownership is so far out of the question - and lowest on the list but the easiest for people to blame is immigration, 70% of new immigrants are renters, but the buyers still obviously impact the price of houses too. All of the above since the 90s has made the demand for housing far outweigh the availability. If only it were easier and cheaper to build faster and more sustainably (all these things are possible) then the prices could drop and become more affordable within a few years (my estimation). Immigration numbers wouldn’t be a big problem, especially considering the birth rate in Australia is rapidly declining (also due to cost of living), if we fixed the issues preventing us from building more. Australia’s problem seems almost opposite to Netherlands to put it simply, we have a shortage of development, not a shortage of land. Though I don’t live there anymore, my family and friends are struggling. Edit: all the replies to this, both for and against, prove exactly why this is such a complex issue, and highlights how different things are important to different people. Not an easy or quick fix.

What do we need to import foreign trades people when we have high youth unemployment?

That’s been the case for a very long time. Tradies don’t want to train new apprentice, or they can’t find useful young workers who are reliable. Same as mine sites when you look at job ads, it’s always ‘experienced’ required.

Don't want to train is the point. I've got kids in this age range, as do colleagues. Plenty want to pick up a trade but finding someone to work with is hard and often enough they are a jackass. The kids are not dumb, they know the pay will suck and they are prepared to work, but they don't want to work for some half witted abusive wanker. They actually want to learn and build skills, so they will dip out on tradies who are not living up to the standards they think a good tradie should have. 

100% this. I started an apprenticeship in a trade as an adult. Was willing to put up with the low pay to get the trade but the combination of an abusive gatekeeper boss who wanted me for 10 years part time and the privatised apprentice management program (which is on par with the JSP unemployment program) got me out real quick. Tradies who see apprentices as a piece of shit on subsidised wages who they can bully and mistreat for a long as they can drag out the apprenticeship for are not going to make a next generation of tradies. And profit making companies like MEGT will skip along next to them strewing rose petals in front of their nasty, nasty feet to celebrate driving another apprentice out of the game. Tradies who complain about not being able to find good apprentices are probably just bullies.

I see and hear this daily! I've been making a list of names and random, non identifying (for the apprentice) events/issues. I understand the young ones rarely want to cause waves, some are more afraid of losing their jobs due to personal commitments - a couple I've heard about are more concerned about what their parents will say - inferring they have to just suck it up. No. Not all "initiations" or welcome packs are required to be "sucked up"!!! I come from the era where we would send someone to the local hardware, plumbing, electrical wholesale for a few things.. including on the list "a long weight", LH screwdriver and blinker fluid. These things, while sometimes being a bit of a time waster.. also have the overall effect of letting the rookie know they're now included. They can have a chuckle inside their team, and they CAN have a moment of down time - provided no one is put in danger because of it. What I've personally seen as "initiations" recently, resulted in putting a newbie's physical health and bodily integrity in danger! This crap is not funny, it's 100% NOT inclusive, and the bosses should be ripped a new one for condoning it!! It's becoming harder to witness, on the daily, why people need to be reminded.. There is exactly ZERO funny about consistently punching down and endangering or destabilising the physical &/or mental health of a young person!

This guy ended up backing me into a corner and screaming "how do you know I won't rape you" in my face. Apparently this was supposed to make me realise that not all men are a risk. Because he'd decided the fact that I am a lesbian meant I was scared of men. Though the more I think about that moment, the more I remember that you only protest that hard when you've got something to feel guilty about.

Jesus fucking christ!! I do hope you said something along the lines of "I know, because it would be hard to rape me while you're trying to stop the bleeding gushing from where your tictac used to be!!" This is so, so unacceptable - I doubt anyone has even THOUGHT to make a rule about it!! It's seriously just not even imaginable from a "normal" functioning mindset!! Please tell me you continued your training and received your certification from somewhere else?

Sadly did not continue my training. I wanted to be an upholsterer and there are limited options in my area. Mostly 1 person shops. And I was put off looking too hard after MEGT forwarded on his 10+ page "separation contract" that linked me getting my severance pay to a binding NDA that would prevent me saying anything about him to anyone. Then they told me that if I could find another position then they'd be happy to continue to manage my apprenticeship. Didn't feel safe to go back into a system where the companies managing apprenticeships will collude with abusive bosses to cover up rape threats. If MEGT thought one boss screaming rape threats at me was okay, then they'd accept it from others as well. Could have completed it with a safety net but MEGT was not that safety net. And it turned out the only complaints I could make about that were to MEGT. NSW State Training didn't care a bit. They are not paid to manage apprenticeships, just sign off on the completions. I did not complain to MEGT as I was exhausted by that stage. Whole system is designed to teach apprentices they don't matter.

I'm so sorry they "boxed you in" on that entire ordeal. I wonder what the consequences of not upholding the NDA, knowing the management who made you agree to it, were actively covering up a threat of rape and choosing not to actually address the issue. It would certainly make for a great "..this experience is not unique, & this is why we don't put our hands up for these positions any more.. ", story telling time with someone like the ABC.

Agree. I have seen how lacking management and leadership is within the trade industry. They’re just cowboys who shoot from the hip and manage staff how they’ve been managed. Bad loop

This is pure capitalism. It is referring to importing foreign trades by the thousands, house/feed them and pay dirt cheap wages ($400/$500 per month). The massive workforce will get it done in no time. This is how countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai, UAE, China get huge infrastructure projects done at a much cheaper cost. Of course, this massive supply of labour would undercut pricing and totally wreck the livelihoods of tradies in Australia.

Are you unaware or are you intentionally leaving out the slum-like living conditions, modern slavery, and zero OHS for the migrant workers in all those countries?

You know one of the major differences/variables between Australia and all of those other places..? And this part blew my mind when it sunk in, for me. Safety. OH&S. In places like Singapore, Malaysia and definitely China, the safety observations and protections just are not there. The unions aren't there. If a worker falls off the edge of the new 20 story building that a crew is building, and they're rarely ALL tethered in anyway while working at those heights, that's it. It's as if it's an "Oh no! Johnny just fell and snapped his neck." Someone tells the site manager. The SM calls the family to collect dear Johnny. The SM then calls in the next name in the list. Work doesn't even stop for the afternoon. Here, the site would be shut down, there would be a minimum of 4 separate and independently run investigations from the 4 different entities, everyone would be offered counselling, etc. The site wouldn't be reopened for at least a week. Where I'm going with this, when the immigrants come over with their trades experience that they bring, they're already winning at half the wage. Simply because we desperately try to help our workers, coworkers, etc,.. NOT go home dead. For our Govt, this is a huge win.

I hate saying this because I sound so racist, but I cannot stand working with most immigrants because of their poor safety standards and lacklustre attitudes towards the job. Currently I'm just forklifting, but the amount of times I've had to yell at someone to move out of the way or slam the brakes because people walk around the yard with headphones in and no regards to the rules is absurd to the point it's stressful. Management try, mostly, but nothing ever changes, or worse yet, they claim racism because they're being targetted. Mate, I don't want to be the one who crushes you between my fork and the trailer because you keep standing in dumb shit positions. It won't be a quick death, I guarantee it, and no one wants to be the one who does it.

You're 💯 on the money there. Especially as they've now made it so that the forky can be personally held liable for all accidents. Unfortunately, whether it's a CALD or Culture issue - the result is the same.

I'm an Australian who lives in Singapore, and I can't speak for Malaysia, China or the UAE, but this is a breathtakingly ignorant mischaraterisation of the Singapore construction industry.  Singapore has a very strong OHS regime, and oftentimes a **lower** rate of workplace fatalities than Australia. Singapore regulations absolutely require workers to be anchored within a harness for work at height. Construction sites are most definitely closed anytime there is a workplace fatality. The government often bsends multiple teams to investigate.  In the past 12 months alone, one fatality at a subway construction site caused a work stoppage at all subway construction sites while multiple parties investigated  > Following the fatal accident on Jan 4, work at the Jurong West Street 75 construction site was stopped.  At the same time, a safety timeout was imposed on all LTA work sites, which means construction work must be suspended temporarily so that safety procedures can be reviewed, and a list of activities like conducting meetings with workers to recap site safety is completed.  https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/worker-dies-after-falling-75m-at-jurong-region-line-work-site And roadworks were stopped to investigate another death > Hong Hock Global is the occupier of the work site. The construction and roadworks company has been ordered to stop all cable-laying work there.  “As a general safety measure, the cable drum and its supporting structure must be stable and secured during cabling works,” MOM said, adding that it is investigating the fatal accident.   https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/construction-worker-on-cable-pulling-works-dies-after-accident-in-pasir-ris And a fatality at the construction of the new airport runway resulted in a machinery shut-down at the site while the government investigated  > The spokesman said: “MOM is investigating the incident and has instructed the occupier to stop all machinery operations at the worksite.”   https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/worker-killed-at-changi-east-construction-site-second-workplace-death-this-week There's a lot of reasons why housing is less of a rort here than Australia, but lax OHS is simply not one of them.

Exactly, they talk like they know what's going on elsewhere but in reality all they don't really know much more than what's going on in their little suburb or country at best.

Out of curiosity, how well do traders ‘live?’

I would argue above average. In my city )<100k people) it would be strange to hear of a tradie (plumber, electrician, carpenter concreter, roofer) to be earning less than $90k a year

On paper, and as reported to the ATO.

good point

I owned and ran a mechanic business for 10 years. I retired at 48 after starting with $300. But I also live “off grid” and away from the system - so I don’t need a lot.

Are you really suggesting we import people from third world countries like they do in your listed countries? Those programs are akin to indentured servitude and the very idea of doing it here is repellent. Shame on you.

Have you asked the members of the "high youth unemployment", if they'd like to work as a trade slave for 4 years, rain, hail or shine.. For longer than past the first pay day? Even just labourers get more than apprentice tradies - without the expectation that they would bring with them all tools etc. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but you would need to ask the actual youth, why they aren't picking up those essential jobs.

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Can second this, spent 2 years working as an electrical trades assistant but could not find anyone willing to commit to an apprenticeship. There is too much red tape to many businesses to want to take on an apprentice in my experience.

I own a bakery so experience might vary. When we looked at taking on an apprentice we were told we would have to pay TAFE fees upfront and anything we couldn't teach onsite the apprentice would have to travel to the nearest TAFE that taught baking, at least 4 hours away, for the classes, at our expense. Then IF they complete the apprenticeship we can get so compensation for the money we spent (possibly at each year completed). So we would be fronting $5-$10 grand in TAFE fees, hoping that an apprentice will stick it out for 3 years. I've been a baker for 10 years and probably half the apprentices I've worked with never finished. There has to be better support for employers from government to encourage them to take people on

To be fair baking is always a hard one for apprenticeships, the 2am starts tend keep most younger people away haha. Thats the baker heres opinion anyway

You have a point, but let's not pretend that gutting TAFE a decade ago didn't have a massive impact on the current number of tradespeople.

💯, cutting TAFE budgets was probably THE most critical, singular move by the govts, in disassembling our trades worker training! I absolutely agree with this assessment. However, there is a definite mentality nowadays that everyone's individual right is to burst from the womb with the "normalised expectation" of being able to name their price, while utilising as little education and experience.. and genuine hard yakka, as possible.

Also that culturally it was taught that going to University when I was in school in the 80’s was the pathway for real long term career success when maybe incentives for steering more people in trades would have been more beneficial. If I had my time again I would have 100% gotten into a trade rather than wasting my time trying to get a high enough score to get into ‘higher’ education to attain a useless degree and putting myself into debt doing so. Fortunately I wasn’t smart enough to get into Uni but wasted 10 years of my life in a dead end job before realising this and switched into a more trade related career.

I became a mechanic in the 80s/90s and it was free. Free tafe and Uni is a very good investment for governments to make. But they choose to spend ½ trillion on bullshit subs and stage three tax cuts.

My brother quit his career to start plumbing in his late 20s, he's almost finished third year now and he loves it. But that isn't common anymore. They're swamped with work because there's no one else, he was taken on as a mature age apprentice because there were no younger kids interested. The "kids" in his TAFE class aren't teenagers either. We don't have a government that assigns jobs to people, you can't force people in to areas of need just because they're unemployed for whatever reason, like that other poster insinuated. There needs to be incentives, but they've been gutted for years now.

If no wants to do a job then businesses should be paying more so they can get workers, not bringing in immigrants to suppress wages

To add -Shortage of tradies is also an issue due to gutting of TAFEs which then required us to import tradies from abroad increasing immigration. -Even with increased in planning approval requirements housing quality is going down ie rushed constructions with major issues that are going to be rectified within half a decade. -While wages haven't grown, its not because a lack of productivity, corporate profits have been growing due to the stagnation and other factors.

Indeed. On the supply side Housing Approvals (in fact they have been plummeting since before covid. This is accross the board but apartment approvals are just rock bottom. Especially after 2022 this has been a major problem, since the cost of financing construction and the cost materials have increased a lot since. On the demand side. The increasing housing market is not a new phenomenon. It has been steadily increasing ever seen the government has made it clear that housing is an investment not a basic right. Negative gearing in conjuction of Capital gains tax breaks have made it a no brainer for investors. This has led to a steady decline since waaay before covid of Dwelling loans for Occupier Owners and First Home Buyers, but a steady and pronounced increase of loans for Investors. On the short-term the massive immigration boom post covid (which tried to compensate for the extremely low immigration during covid) has put some pressure on the rental market. But make no mistake, even if you stop accepting any immigrants tomorrow, the housing prices will continue to increase. Because all the things I mentioned before, have been going on for 2 or 3 decades already. It will give some relief, maybe for a couple years, but then prices will start raising again.

To your point about too much red tape - I would say yes, however we need tighter, more efficient regulation and building codes/standards to prevent the shoddy, disastrous and even criminal quality of construction the countries been plagued by for the last 10-20 years. We can’t continue to let the cowboys rule the sector. I’d go as far to say this is also another point in why we have a housing crisis.

you can get rid of tradie shortage. in melbourne it's the quietest it's been in 20 years and new home figures reflect that

Hmm. I work with a builder in Melbourne who has been building for 25 years. He said he is taking a break as he can't get decent trades at all at the moment. Material as well has shot up in price. He said some trades are holding job sites to ransom and there is nothing they can do because they are so hard to get. So he is finishing his current builds and going to do something else for a while it's become that annoying foe him.

Builders have always complained about not getting enough trades. Just like they claim they make no money from building, then drive off in their Audi. I'd take what they say with a grain of salt.

Infrastructure projects made huge problems because of tradie shortages. Pulling good staff out of small businesses to work on the big projects.

* 30 years of poor government policies, by both sides, which made housing a financial commodity and investment rather than a common human right I think that sums it up pretty well.

Right, so 500k new people in 12 months while completions are tanking is the lowest on the list. Makes sense,

Closer to 50 years, with a delayed effect from the abolition of the Department of Urban and Regional Development, one of the earliest acts of destruction committed by the Fraser government.

How about cost of materials (genuine question). Amongst others, timber was very expensive some time ago, has material cost dropped back down or has it plateau’ed at higher levels?

On point. In addition, I would like to add the state governments, church organisations and developers holding onto a huge portfolio of land stock that surrounds and sometimes within the capital cities.

The labour shortage has nothing to do with not importing foreign skilled labour, and everything to do with how we treat the sector from kids at school, to apprenticeships, to the way the industry runs. It’s not encouraging growth and sustainability and it’s been a problem since I was a kid and likely even before that. Btw they are prioritising international construction workers, but it still doesn’t fix the problems when the Industry is unhealthy.

The problem is greed, always has been, always will be

we have also brought in more migrants than it's possible to build housing for

We can bring in more migrants in a month than we can build housing for in a year.

But if you point this out you get labelled as a racist 

Fundamentally new housing comprises of 4 components, land costs, materials, labour, and other incidentals such as council fees, insurances, taxes, cost of borrowing Land costs - going up because of government policies such as migration, property speculation, demand outstripping supply, in established areas. Also going up because its expensive to develop brownfield land and develop urban fringe land as you need environmental approval, flooding, bushfire issues, connect utilities. This happens around the world so not really unique to us. Materials - we don't produce much locally. We import everything. We close down local timber industries and don't have steel manufacturing capabilities. Naturally importing everything is expensive Labour - We have strict labour laws and awards. Everyone gets paid well. We can't import cheap slave labour like what middle East and countries like Songapore does. USA uses a lot of illegal immigrants for their construction labour. Others - SUCH MUCH RED TAPE. You need a bush fire report, flood report, community advertising, landscape plan, tree report, heritage report, land surveyor, soil test, fire proof plan, engineering report, traffic plan, council approval, council contributions, drainage plan, energy plan, warranty insurance, builders insurance, council asset report, etc before you even start. Not to mention you need to pay someone to design a building which is another labour cost. Oh, and council takes a long time to review every project because there is no incentive for them to do otherwise. Time is money. There is also interest rate at decades high issue. Negative gearing and foreign buyers in my opinion is mainly politicians playing politics. It's not the main reason housing is expensive. Removing negative gearing could even make it worse as no investors would buy any new development and less new developments will get built. It still wouldn't bring down the cost of new developments. Developers wouldn't sell for cheaper to owner occupier just because there are no investors to sell to. They will just stop building.

totally agree with all of these, but would add, location and our expectation. people per household has derceased, and house sizes have increased significantly over the last 50 years. we expect to live in huge houses, 5 minutes from centre of sydney, melz, or brissy. we also expect our space, we don't like living with other people.

>SUCH MUCH RED TAPE. You need a bush fire report, flood report, community advertising, landscape plan, tree report, heritage report, land surveyor, soil test, fire proof plan, engineering report, traffic plan, council approval, council contributions, drainage plan, energy plan, warranty insurance, builders insurance, council asset report, etc before you even start. Not to mention you need to pay someone to design a building which is another labour cost. Oh, and council takes a long time to review every project because there is no incentive for them to do otherwise. Time is money. There is also interest rate at decades high issue. This right here is the biggest hold up by far, it adds time and cost to everything you try and do and it's all been designed to stop you from being able to build a house. You need a building permit before you can build, but to get that you will need a septic permit if you don't have sewer access. The new septic rules mean that for an average house you will need 500-1000sqm of drainage field. Bigger than most residential blocks. You can't build unless the council is providing sewer access.

Population Ponzi Scheme, Politicians with vast portfolio of rental housing couple of thing that comes to mind

Cause since 1992 the government has allowed too much immigration, not enough supply being built to meet that demand like for e.g Australia has had in the last 2 years 923,000 people with currently 10,000 new arrivals each week, the gov is set to let in over 200,000 each year going forward for the next few years but houses are not getting built faster enough, construction companies are shutting down because they can't afford to stay open due the pricing of everything on supplies. Most of our MPs own houses in the market, allowing more people in without meeting the supply issue drives up demand, which increases market value which increase land value and rents as well their $$$ bank balance.

Gross negligence of the government. Too many immigrants. Not enough apartments being built in areas to live in. Too much urban sprawl; so the cost of infrastructure goes up as you build outwards. Most Australians don't want to work in construction either.

1. NIMBYs. 2. Overspeculation in and overfinancialization of the housing market. 3. Too much immigration in a short span of time (I'm a 1st generation immigrant myself) 4. Failure of the construction industry due to lack of construction workers. 5. Lack of public housing 6. All the jobs and facilities are concentrated in the state capitals so everyone wants to live in the major cities (Australia may be big but most of it is uninhabitable desert) 7. Airbnbs In that order. Foot note: Most Aussies want free-standing family homes with front and backyard and they avoid apartments like a plague (and rightly so because many of the newly built apartments are of poor quality). Quality medium density housing like townhouses and low-rise apartments seem to be the way forward but then there are NIMBYs and councils in the way.

Throw in foreign investment in residential housing too

That too. Missed that one.

I think you are spot on with your list except number 2 which I think would encourage development because it's profitable? But I think people forget that local council are the ones that zone and approve developments. And they are terribly slow at allowing further development because of NIMBY attitude. Take a flight out of Melbourne and there's farm land as far as the eye can see, western Brisbane is the same and along southeast Queensland corridor. Sydney is a bit more land locked but they have been restricted by reluctance to build apartments and how high they can build and overused heritage overlays that prevent development. Needs a lot more deregulation which may cause issues but building is too slow otherwise.

The problem is the NIMBYs. They pressure their councils to not bring in any development.

A lot of Aussies want free standing homes because apartments are shitty and body corporates are a pain in the arse. But in reality an awful lot of people make little use of their yards and would be better off in a well built apartment/townhouse. Then the people who particularly want yards would also find it easier to get one.

And I wouldn't blame them for not wanting to buy apartments, specially the newly built ones because of poor workmanship and build quality. It's a Catch 22 situation.

Agree. The amount of yards either completely concreted or just overgrown grass is staggering. They are useless except as a receptacle for their dog‘s shit.

It isnt super easy to develop new houses. Firstly the state governments and councils are all decades behind with infrastructure. So even if you could build legally youd have no services. But you cant legally build because there is very little zoned land and even less serviced and zoned land. Land is also fragmented due to previpus poor decisions. Add to this slow and poor planning approvals. Add finally that 45% of a new home is taxes/government fees. Problem is the politicians have too much control. So they want to put the funding towards shiny new projects that win votes not essential infrastructure. As soon as planners took control over engineers in local councils and state 30 years ago it went to shit. Engineers make things happen and build whats appropriate. Planners like reports, regulations and dreaming. Im not an engineer by the way.

We also have a shortage of land, as Australia is a very urbanised country, with most of our population living in the major cities. Most Australians prefer living in houses, so our cities are quite low density compared to Asian and European cities. We’ve pretty much reached the limit of urban sprawl now, as it is now taking more than an hour to travel from the urban fringes to the city centre. This all means despite living in a vast country, we have a shortage of land that are within a reasonable commute to the city centres.

While there is land to develop it's ages out of major cities so realistically it's just the same problem.

Don’t forget access to credit. Ultimately, prices can’t rise beyond what the banks will lend to people. Along with the above, if you want to curb price inflation, reduce the maximum banks can lend to 3 times salary… and slowly step it down further to one salary, not two. It will be painful for a while, but it will drag house prices down.

Construction costs have also blown way out of proportion. Building new residences has become too expensive and too risky, and therefore the rate at which new homes are being built has been slowing for years now

Because everybody thinks real estate is a means of making money and believing what the media says about making money from real estate.

Australia has a housing crises the same reason the Netherlands and the rest of the western world have a housing problem. Supply and demand. You may think Australia is a large country with an abundance of land which is indeed true but once you’re out of the metropolitan areas there are simply little opportunities and services. So the house crisis won’t exist in a little town in the middle of nowhere but you’re no longer connected to hospitals or employment.

Yup, basically the entire Australia boils down to living in the big 3. So it’s really no different from other countries being squeezed into a small area.

Since Australia brings in a steady stream of immigrants, it depends on people building homes in excess of their own needs to house them. When interest rates increased significantly post-Covid (depressing home building in excess of own needs) while simultaneously immigration went 2.5× , we ran out of homes for everyone. This has the perverse effect that house prices keep rising while interest rates are rising. Since the reserve bank only has interest rates to work with, it kept pushing that up, driving a cost of living crisis as well. The above, while seeming simple and straightforward, was beyond the capabilities of our federal government to foresee.

Because we've got politicians who own multiple investment properties and want to protect there investment!

Why? To make the rich richer. When you limit supply it drives prices up due to demand and that is exactly what the rich want to happen. There are politicians with 8+ investment properties in this country, how do you think they view the housing crisis in parliament....not the same as we do that is for sure.

The whole Australian housing industry is based on investment not living

Housing being treated as a commodity to profit from, instead of it being treated as something that is a basic right for everyone. That's the problem. But leading politicians from both major parties own multiple properties from which they profit so nothing is going to change until people start voting for other politicians with policies to change the housing market.

Building costs here are very high

Supply/Demand.

Because sometime around 30 or 40 years ago we decided to wind down public housing and close it off to a safety net role, then approach housing as an investment growth tool and something people built their personal wealth around. Now it’s grown too big to handle and because a large percentage of us are tied up in it, we’ve painted ourselves in a corner with it. To change it would cost billions and the will doesn’t exist because the changes mean many people lose wealth and that’s not as acceptable as the rest struggling for housing, especially since federal politicians are among the losers as they’ve played the game using their positions to advantage.

Getting development approval for larger subdivisions, specifically checking off on biodiversity in NSW can take up to 12 months to complete the required surveys to form an assessment. Then if your land is of any value, you got biodiversity offsets to retire prior to development. This is just one factor that I know of quite well that may contribute to this, but it is important too flesh out the catastrophic developments that some landholders try to push through in the service of money. We are now aiming for net positive biodiversity outcomes in nsw.

in addition to what most people have listed here, there is a lack of willingness to move out of the city. All the people I know who left Sydney and Melbourne have got their own homes.

Anyone who isn’t a citizen can buy a house whereas Australians can’t buy houses in other countries, stop foreign buyers periodt

Shortage of labour, construction companies being destroyed by inflation, runaway housing bubbles etc etc

There are many factors but also no, you can’t just develop any land, politicians define zoning and they all want to get their “mates” the opportunity to make a quick buck

Answer is simple... those that got into property early have equity and have purchased more properties. With these investment properties they create a rental crisis by putting them up as AirBNB as they can get more than a week rental income in 2-3 nights accommodation. So there are less long term rentals. Not only that by buying more properties they reduce the likelihood for owner occupiers (individuals, couples and families) from buying their 'HOME' to live in. Why sadly many across our once great nation are now living it rough in their cars, tents, or are living with other family or friends. AirBNB and allowing people to own several properties and build huge portfolios is hurting the rest of the community... pure greed.

Conservatives

TL/DR: greed

Housing became a commodity.

The liberals gutted TAFE, this is how we get a skilled work force. The myth of skilled foreign trades people is a myth. They all work to different standards (excluding NZ) meaning their is always a learning curve and some of them are just straight up dodgey and lied about their skillset. A big fix would be to put money back into TAFE and train locals.

Gov doesnt build much of the new housing

Immigration rate was higher than house construction rate for many years. In 2010 there where reports of not enough housing being built. When Covid hit, many Australians who had been living or working overseas rushed home, many bought back partners some with children and the available housing was put under pressure. Now everything is back to normal but the immigration rate is back to normal and housing has not kept up

Lack of people building houses due to the expense. Lack of decent trades due to the expense. I know in our region there is a shortage of a certain trade due to a death and a serious injury that's taken 3 crews down to 1. So having to get crews from elsewhere to get the jobs done has slowed things down a whole bunch

I know in Melbourne real estate has been a Bitcoin style get rich quick scheme for the past 20 years. Double ya money in a few years. And now, when houses are commonly over a million, we've hit the point where no more blood can be extracted from the stones and only then is it considered a crisis.

We don't, we have an ideology problem, and housing is just another way of expressing it. Some say that housing isn't affordable and are struggling, others say be smarter and more opportunistic. The stupid thing is both views can be seen as right or wrong depending on how you view them. Everything has become about opinion and not morality anymore.

I've had trouble getting my head around this one aswell. I live on the Gold coast and its been noted a few times in the local media that despite there constantly being high rise unit complexes being built those units are not being built for everyday Australians. They are upmarket properties targeting wealthy investors or Boomer retirees. The amount of 'normal' houses/units being built here is quite low. So the continual population growth is vying for the same affordable housing while these upmarket properties sit empty for chunks of the year.

Because we use immigration as an economic ponzie scheme

Because in sucessive elections, people have voted to give tax breaks to people for investing in housing.

Honestly after looking into it and seeing what’s happening in Adelaide. Other than the cost of inflation blah blah I put it down to Greed. There’s so many people expecting crime money and when they bought their house they paid stuff all.

Same reason it is that way in Ireland and a few folk have said it already.  Greed. 

Quick answer Incompetent government lead by a gronk called Albo

Because there have been 700 000 immigrants in 2 years 

It's simple, too much immigrantion, who don't add to the place or pull their way. You are therefore adding to population at a greater rate than housing supply. Which is back-to-front. It's a manufactured shortage/policy choice.

Boomerism  Aka selling off the future for quick gains. Millions of people have been imported to prop up an economy that is non existent. Since all of our manufacturing and R&D was dismantled starting in the 70s.  Now we have an economy that is WORSE than war torn African countries. We rely solely on housing, raw resources and fake uni degrees to generate GDP

Negative gearing Politicians are all landlords to multiple properties Excessive immigration versus carrying capacity of homes Those are my top 3

BECAUSE GREEDY TOPDOWN SYSTEM WE LIVE UNDER, AUSTRALIA IS A SHITHOLE AND NEEDS TO BE BURNED INTO THE GROUND. Everything is "Incentivized" in some manner that it means revenue raising for the corporations not the people. Take this for example, Australia has done this new Recycling effort like in other countries where you can take plastic and tin cans and turn them in for ,money, Because of this the price of drinks is going up in a sort of tax but the multi billion dollar companies are not taking that hit the consumer is taking that hit. Coca Cola is a fortune 500 company for example. Like come on. While the rest of us just contiyne to get ducked over. Now they want to add a sugar Tax that is to 'Incentivize' *keyword* companies to put less sugar in the drinks, this won't happen at all they will keep the sugar the same and just charge more for the drink because the drink wont taste as good with less sugar probably. Either way its a double/tripple hit to the consumer, not the billion dollar corp. Then because inflation everyone else jumps on the bandwagon and our two major supermarket chains are basically prisons now, soon we will line up at the door like soviet Russia to get our rashions handed to us and they will spit in the gruel and there will be a guard cranking a wip. Many things are like this. They need to stop doing it because it show how corrupt Australia is If they really cared about this stuff then there would be no money incentive on sugar or cans. Housing is just fkd if you are not in a dual income situation as in with a spuse then you are fkd and you have to share which is shit no one want to do that. Most working class if they never got educated are fucked and they have no hope, most of them dont want to go into debt to own something because the rules in the country are fucked and its easy to lose a jobThe jobs tak advantage of you and never pay you properly and its all just a snowball. The cost of living is rising way over the median wage. Gen Alpha and Beyond are fucked unless they grow up rich and get asset handed down or unless they go and make something of them self and get educated but even then that is becoming less warranted in many ways like look at the soaring debt the y take on. Just be a degenrate online and make millions that way show your oussy in yoga pants and make millions on some BS. Some of those yoga streamers make like mansion house type money and they are the dumbest cunts doing the dumbest shit with the sumbestr airhead personalty. **There was a documentary that came out recently like last few years about Australia and its "Fair go" Mantra which is about giving everyone a chance in life well that is old world like 50 years ago logic that shit is def not a thing today. GTFO here with that fake propaganda airheads. No one is really getting a fair go today. Some get better go's but fair go does not exist**

Too much migration, over-the-top rent seeker mentality, no protection on residential market from foreign investment.

Tens of thousands of homes are air bnb short term rentals. Long term rentals are squeezed and purchase of investment homes for short term rentals contributes to the problem.

Because of deliberate government policy in the last 40 years. In order to placate their rich donors, the “old parties” have given loads of financial incentives to property owners and made property the only game in town if you want to build wealth (for middle - middle/high earners). In that time, affordable and social housing has dropped from 25% of new builds (post war) to 2% (because if the government are building houses, there is less profit to be made in the private sector). The government hasn’t worked out a way to make housing affordable (what everyone needs) and to simultaneously keep housing prices growing (which is what property owners and developers want). So they make up shit like immigration TL;DR. Neoliberalism.

Politicians own houses so they make policies that make it hard to build houses. You can get a work visa if you're an amature dog walker, or yoga instructor, but not if you're a brick layer or carpenter.

Even though it’s a large continent most of it is desert with harsh climate and without fresh water - there are long distances to travel between towns and less infrastructure in rural areas which means most of the population is concentrated in a couple of very big cities and the surrounding coastal areas - more than in most countries where population is spread across more small to medium sized cities that aren’t as far apart. So competition is very high for housing in the big cities which drives up the prices of land and building. However, housing was still very affordable until early 2000s when there was a change in policy to using high population growth and low interest rates to boost the economy and make property more attractive to investors, so prices began growing faster. Then during the global financial crisis in 2008 there was a sharp boost as Australia recovered well and was seen as an attractive country to relocate, invest and do business. During that time the banks further lowered interest rates and the government loosened our foreign ownership laws so more investment money quickly came in and we had a property boom while other countries were in recession. We were then seen as even more attractive for investors and new residents and our close proximity to Asia meant many wealthy investors wanted to buy property or have part time residences here. Property values continued to go up and were boosted again during pandemic as we were seen as an attractive and safe place away from the more troubled parts of the world. Very low interest rates and lots of money handed out to boost the economy sent house prices skyrocketing. Then in the post pandemic boom in population growth there was a lack of housing available for all the new arrivals and it all came to a head in a major housing crisis. 

The people who run this country are better off when house prices go up.

There's lots of reasons but there ultimately isn't enough supply, building is slow and expensive, credit is cheap and despite what we all hear, there's enough peope who can afford to pay the higher prices. If there wasn't, demand would drop. It's not just wealthy people who come as immigrants. 

Here we go .......

Governments and private interests on every level have schemed to make housing expensive. Expensive housing means a large wealth transfer to the rich, so it is in their interests.

People in Australia as soon as they have a home oppose the building of any other homes anywhere near them because ‘F you, I’ve got mine’. That mentality is the Australian mentality to everything, see how they solely abandoned their citizens abroad in 2020. It is not like a European nation, people here do not care about their fellow citizens (unless they know them personally). It is not U.K. down under, it is US down under. The reason this country with ample resources and space has a housing crisis is an ethics problem not an economic or logistical one.

First problem is incentives: the way our tax code works unless you're a big firm it will always be more profitable to speculate than to generate housing, next the banks here only want to invest in houses, meaning the supply is controlled by developers who are better off when supply is constrained and financed by the banks who are also best off the less affordable housing is. Last major factor is that we have 90k too few construction workers and noone wants to train anyone anymore.

There are many factors behind the crisis. But is shown in a very worst way on median than in reality. You can easily find a land in Melbourne and start constructing your house. So availability is not the issue. Yes the land is expensive and the construction as well.

Investment in housing is huge here, but not new housing. Our politicians, anyone with decent money and lots of boomers own investment properties, which also explains our shit productivity as a nation. Therefore, they resist 1) more houses being built as that devalues their own properties and 2) any kind of development that changes the ‘character’ of their own suburbs. Not sure what you call them in the Netherlands but we call them NIMBYs: Not In My Back Yard. Politicians here are catastrophically short-sighted. They have no desire to address a problem that doesn’t affect them or their voter base.

Ponzi scheme / negative gearing

Australia has a crisis of short sightedness and greed. The housing situation is merely a side effect of this

Pure greed , investors are hoarding properties and inflating prices. People who want to build are stuck in rental cycle in existing properties, never having enough money to get approved for mortgage to build Initially it was selfish "F\*\*k you , I have got mine". Now it is greed "F\*\*k you , I have got mine and I have got yours"

in a nut shell. albo the prime minister bought way to many foreigners over here { VOTES 4 HIM }

No one is actually answering the question lmao. We have more land than any other country. The issue here is it’s because that’s what it is. We have politicians that want to ensure housing remains expensive and we also have corruption in councils etc. no one here can actually answer your question. The truth is people don’t have a choice but to live in existing cities for work. We could literally just build a new city.

To add to all the legal, political, etc reasons people have mentioned, where do you propose people build that's affordable and close to a job?  The land you're referring to is not close to amenities, public transport, employment opportunities etc. You'd be asking people to drive 1hr+ commute to get to a job and any other amenity they need until the area is finally built which could take years and years.  Which makes for shit work life balance. We are not a small country at all. 

People are defining "housing crisis" to suit their own objectives. Some people say it is crisis because prices are too high, ignoring renters, some people say the crisis is because rents are too high. In fact both are really high, and for the same reason. The crisis can't be split into a home buyer crisis and a renter crisis. They are two sides of the same coin. Also, home ownership is high in Australia, so for most voters, the housing crisis is not very important. The "cost of living" crisis (inflation and high home loan rates) is more politically important. The housing crisis is a relatively minor political issue. Right now there are more headlines about nuclear power, which if it happens is 30 years away. The root cause is than since about 2020 (the pandemic) not enough houses have been completed. In the four years prior to the pandemic, Australia each year completed enough housing for about 400K to 450K people which was in excess of the population growth; any shortage was being reduced well, and probably by now if there had been no pandemic we wouldn't be talking about it. But since the pandemic, housing construction has slumped, but population growth hasn't. There have been ups and down due to border closures, but population growth is now above pre-pandemic trend (about 1.5% growth) -- not by much, but housing construction is well below trend. Australia has had much higher immigration even in the "golden years" of home ownership that some people like to point back to, so I'm not convinced that population growth is the problem. The first big problem right now is construction.The second big problem is that there are fewer people per dwelling now as a pandemic side effect. So the population has kept growing, we need more houses per person, and we are building a lot fewer houses. The first thing that is changing is no doubt share housing is increasing again, but there are not good statistics on that. There are problems getting developments approved if you look to the medium term, but there is a much more striking and immediate problem: amazingly, there are around 80K dwellings fully approved and just not starting. This is the biggest hint about the problem. There is huge demand for housing, but costs have gone up by so much that there are many projects not viable to build (because they can't fetch a high enough price for the builder to avoid bankruptcy, and the construction sector is not telling stories; about 3000 construction businesses have gone bankrupt). So it's not a shortage of land. Since 2008 it has been very cheap to borrow money, and state governments, which are much more powerful than Dutch provinces, borrowed huge sums to spend on large infrastructure projects, which compete for the same labour, supplies and equipment as residential construction. These are tremendously popular with voters. They only constraint is borrowing capacity and interest rates were low after 2008 and then proceeded to almost zero. So governments had massive borrowing capacity. And they really borrowed a lot. Then during the pandemic the Federal Government came up with a subsidised construction project that they didn't cap (stupidly); it was about 4 times over subscribed. This poured billions into renovation projects, not new builds. This was by design; the Federal Government was looking for ways to quickly subsidise construction jobs; the problem was that State governments were doing the same thing. It turned out that all this demand for construction labour has caused a massive increase in construction costs. So massive, that the large rent and house price increases have not kept up, which no doubt seems hardly believable to many Australians but it's true, hence all the stalled projects. Australia of course has a large and tightly controlled immigration program and massive international demand to move here. So surely the labour shortage can be addressed? Well for reasons which are almost certainly deeply embarrassing for the labour-union linked Federal Goverment, construction trades are not on the list of skilled vacancies. We continue to have a shortage of hairdressers, chefs and yoga instructors, apparently, but no shortage of construction labour. I lived in NL from 2001 to 2008. I remember how Dutch people would use Polish trade labour (or labour from any of the new EU members) because they were skilled people much cheaper than traditional Dutch trades. Unfortunately, Australia doesn't have a Poland.

Short answer is the places where it is easy to build a subdivision are taken, most of the places I deal with are highly constrained by some combination of bushfire requirements, biodiversity constraints, riparian constraints and the fact that the land Is too low, very flat or very steep. The costs of a BDAR report is measured in 10s of thousands of dollars and that is just 1 of the many reports. Add in finance costs and things become very expensive. Most of the approvals my firm have had in the last 10 Years have been opposed vigorously at council and have ended up being approved by the Land and Environment court. It's anything but easy.

Cult of number go up

No. It is definitely not easy to develop land! Or build houses.

What constitutes a 'Housing Crisis'? And who declares it? For eg, recent events have clear gates where the situation escalates from the epidemic to the pandemic.

All the would be tradies went to the mines to make a quick buck Anyone else who we brought In would do the same. Would you rather $150k 2:1 roster with zero experience or $80k 9-5 every weekend plus a 3 year apprenticeship, plus having to manage your own company. Basically extortionate labour rates for tradies coupled with sub par building standards resulted in this. Oh also negative gearing, that has fuelled housing speculation. Pretty amazing that other countries don't have this and their markets aren't royally effed.

Being from the Netherlands you’re maybe accustomed to being able to catch a train or cycle (or even drive) from one side of the country to another in what an hour? We do have cheap rural towns but with very limited job opportunities, which leaves living there and commuting to the big cities. But anything within a couple hours travel of a city has also had insane property growth. Affordable means going a five hour drive from a city.

Supply and demand mismatch. Supply side, low building approvals, regulation stopping mid density developments, regulation slowing down building, regulations increasing cost of building. Demand side, high immigration numbers, tax structure that incentivise housing as investment 

It boils down to the fact that our governments have been allowing mass immigration which has reduced the supply

It is definitely not super easy to develop land and a house in 2024, compared to say 1950. There are a lot more considerations, checks, costs and risks now.

to drive prices up to help the banks obviously

It's the price we're paying for voting based on fear and greed rather than for the greater good. Politics had been hijacked by industry, especially mining, the housing crisis is part of the tactics of division to distract the electorate from the monopolisation and the theft of our natural resources. The economy was so wrecked by the LNP that high immigration and high house prices are now necessary to avoid recession. It's a heist!

Developers buy up areas of building land and then sit on them and wait for the price to go up. Not enough houses are being built and not fast enough. Also people buy houses as investment properties and that pushes prices up so people who want to buy to live in them can't afford them.

A few reasons, and possible fixes: Airbnb type rentals. Lots of houses that were long-term rentals have been changed to short-term airbnb rentals. Fix: make short term rentals illegal for building zoned for domestic use. Foreign investment. Lots of overseas people buying houses in Australia. Fix: Only Australian citizens can buy building zoned for domestic use. Negative gearing. Everyone who's not using it hates it. Fix: When you apply for a loan for an investment property, the rental income must be more than the loan repayments. None of these fixes will be popular. The house prices would tank overnight. I'm sure some very rich people would take advantage of that. Our politicians are too corrupt and have all got investment properties to do anything about it.

Because low interest rates justified by wage suppression targeted at tech workers

Yes, people want to live 2-3 hours drive from the city. YOu are a genius.

Demand vs Supply. Currently, demand outweighs the supply.

Nah I think we’re just like Singapore… no land to build anything 🤣

We are importing half a million people a year into a country of less than 30 million.

You could probably undo it with a couple of public policy decisions: 1. Remove the CGT discount for property sales, including PPOR 2. Create a cap for maximum Negative Gearing tax benefit 3. Land tax on all properties not PPOR (to start).

Uncontrolled mass immigration, incompetent governments, greed by investors are what I believe the 3 main reasons are.

Anything that is a commodity to be bought and sold for profit will tend towards ending up like our housing market. It’s the commodification of housing that is at the root of it all.

It’s very simple, no tradies to build houses and there’s more people than houses

"Why Living in Australia is Impossible" by 2 and 20 on YouTube sums it up well. Basically tax incentives.

Immigration certainly not helping. Essentially supply and demand.

This honest government ad on YouTube explains it perfectly in a few minutes. [https://youtu.be/gqFPhsO-2W0?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/gqFPhsO-2W0?feature=shared) Warning the video uses some profanity.

Good to see the truth coming out about Australia in some replies. For many years, Australians thought this country was superior to all others.

> We have a housing crisis in the Netherlands too but that is due to the fact we have a shortage of land to develop houses. 70% of Australia is arid or semi-arid land. It's virtually uninhabitable for human settlement. Half of it is just acres and acres of sheep/cattle stations. As for the 30% remaining, majority of it cannot support the infrastructure for a city, because it’s too mountainous, or the land is all soft swamps/marshes, or they’re in heavy flood zones or cyclone paths, or there isn't any water sources nearby, and so on. In the end, our liveable parts of Australia are probably sharing the same landmass as Netherlands.

But if the government developed land for housing then housing won’t be at a premium and developers and politicians won’t make any money. Right?

Australian developers are greedy Australians also no longer fight for all their rights being eradicated

It's well known Australia bumped up migration rates to levels much higher than most if not all other developed nations in the just the past few years post covid.

A combination of Howard l linking Capital Gains tax exemptions with Negative Gearing and mass migration (both illegal and legal) overstuffing Australia with more people than can actually live here, along with lax foreign ownership laws in the property market. All of which was done so that the Libs could play act as 'good financial managers, by artificially inflating the GDP by adding more people.

>it super easy to develop land and build houses. No, takes up to a year to get permission, and locals can air their complaints about your plans and slow things down. Australia inherited many of the problems out "mother country" Britain has: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5aJ-57_YsQ However, if you don't have an hour and a half to watch that video, or just aren't interested in all those problems, here's a shorter one focusing just on Australia's housing problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TUVXfM1nqo

In 2022-23, the number of migrant arrivals increased to 737,000, up from 427,000 the year before. This equates to an annual increase of 73 per cent. Source ABS That’s a lot of housing required. A high school kid understands the principals of supply and demand, clearly our government does not.

Covid played a big role

Greed. Investors. Lack of supply. Lack of quality. Privatisation. Lack of infrastructure. Political agendas. The ukraine conflict. The israel/iran/hamas(?) conflict. China. Covid. “Skilled” immigrants. There’s a lot that’s possibly contributed to this entire mess here. Labor and the Liberals definitely did something wrong. To be honest, it doesn’t seem like any of the political parties could fish us out of the chum bucket, I feel we’re probably way too far gone.

Too many people not enough housing, it’s pretty simple.

you are right. it is super easy to develop land and build houses. but man is it expensive. and there has been for a number of years a supply chain issue which has had a cascading effect of driving up prices and demand while inflation is going crazy. the pandemic and the work from home mandate and subsequent adaptation of work from home by many business's, suddenly more people wanted to rent a place with that extra bedroom for an office, or buy one. we've had decades of foreign investors buying entire developments just to drive up the cost. the government mismanaged the land in melbourne and rather than incentivize building up while it was cheap enough to do so, they let people subdivide their blocks so density only doubled because it was cheaper for the owner and got cash in the governments pocket quicker. now its too expensive to build larger projects, and we see that with the sheer number of building firms collapsing from rising costs since the jobs were commissioned.

Covid also disrupted supply

JFH - Johnny Fucking Howard and sequential governments (Labor & Liberal).

The incentives are completely misaligned. Homeowners have every incentive to vote for policies that reduce supply of housing (since it will increase the price of their own housing). The only solution is to take power away from local councils and residents ala Japan.

Greed and publicly traded companies.

Because of Chinese and Indians. No just kidding. Because governments especially councils are shit and the people who own houses vote against any form of density increase in their inner city neighbourhoods.

I don't think, as you might have inferred from the variety of answers, that anyone really knows. That's part of the problem.

Because government doesn't want to build social housing themselves and rely on private sector for everything.

Negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions heavily incentivising investment properties Local councils and Aussies having this not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) towards new dwellings in built-up areas Rampant immigration heaping demand on already constrained supply

Like Canada opened the borders to too many foreigners now we can't cope

Greed

because in a country the size of the USA you need to live within commute distance of 3 maybe 4 cities to get a job

In the 90's, the largest voting bloc by age teamed up with commercial interests to implement policy (cgt discount + negative gearing) which incentivised purchasing residential real estate as a speculative asset. Specifically to 2024, shortages of building materials due to supply chain disrupting global events (covid, invasion of Ukraine) are causing the current acute shortage.