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It's crazy how every country is dealing with rising housing costs, I thought it was just the US but I see many from Europe, Canada, and now Australia facing the same issues. So depressing
It's crazy how every country is dealing with rising housing costs, I thought it was just the US but I see many from Europe, Canada, and now Australia facing the same issues. So depressing
Due to the covid lock-downs and shutting down the economy for two years effectively creating a backlog in the industry while bringing in migrants most of which won't contribute to the construction of houses it has meant we are in the mess we are.
I remember being in lock-down in New Zealand before we moved to Australia and all these young people sitting at home doing nothing loving the fact that the taxpayer was paying us all to sit at home. I remember thinking that when this is all over the economic consequences will be far greater and it will be the young who are most affected. Meanwhile in Western Australia when we moved there they completely closed the border to skilled migrants for two years while intentionally creating the greatest demand to build houses in the state's history with significant housing grants. Think about it, they shut down the production facilities that create the materials to build our homes every few months with lock-down after lock-down, they then stop the very people who can build houses from entering the state. Then they say to the population, here is taxpayers money to go and flood the market with demand for all of the materials that are now in short supply and a labor market that can't keep up. The result was a inflationary crisis that will take MANY years to fix and now the young people who were loving their few weeks or months off work are now priced out of a market they may never be able to enter. Worse though and i sometimes can't help but falling victim to this view myself but perhaps it's all planned. While the middle class is shrinking the wealthy are doing better than ever. Their equity is increasing, the average man's loss appears to be their gain.
Who knows but i actually find it laughable that Australians actually believed Labor wanted to fix this crisis. Fixing this crisis means housing becoming more affordable which means popping a bubble. It's the sole reason why Labor won't Prioritize and flood the market with enough tradies to build the houses Australia needs. Imagine that, house prices not just levelling off but dropping due to a flooding of housing into the market. There is NO other skill that Australia needs more today that Tradies because the the sole biggest issue in this country is the housing crisis. The government isn't stupid, they know how it can be fixed but they aren't trying to fix the housing crisis by making housing more affordable. They are trying to fix it by mainly relying on alternative ideas to housing such as creating more affordable densely populated apartments and guarantoring up to 40% of the price of new houses in the help to buy scheme to keep house prices overall very high
I thought there were only a few lockdowns in WA. Here in NSW construction only stopped for a couple of weeks at the start of our one hundred day lockdown. Our daughter signed the contracts for a house extension the week before the shutdown and it was finished in nine months instead of seven, which we thought pretty good in the circumstances.
Here in Sydney and I assume elsewhere a major problem is the time it takes to get anything approved. Then there is the issue of tradies being diverted to insurance work. It is only four years since our summer of fires and then 2022 was the year of the floods. Thank goodness last year was fairly normal weather and things could at least get done.
There are multiple factors involved in the whole housing issues. And so many regulations.
I thought there were only a few lockdowns in WA. Here in NSW construction only stopped for a couple of weeks at the start of our one hundred day lockdown. Our daughter signed the contracts for a house extension the week before the shutdown and it was finished in nine months instead of seven, which we thought pretty good in the circumstances.
Here in Sydney and I assume elsewhere a major problem is the time it takes to get anything approved. Then there is the issue of tradies being diverted to insurance work. It is only four years since our summer of fires and then 2022 was the year of the floods. Thank goodness last year was fairly normal weather and things could at least get done.
There are multiple factors involved in the whole housing issues. And so many regulations.
I'm more meaning the global lock-downs as much of our building material comes from interstate or overseas. Material shortages wasn't actually the worst of it however. The material shortages are what led to the huge price increases but the huge delays was mostly down to labor shortages. For example our house took 2 years to build from signing the contract. There was entire months where there was little movement due to not being able to get tradies. The significant delays were 90% labor shortage related. The material shortages merely set us back a few weeks. As bad off as we were however there are many people who are worse off such as those that built with the likes of BGC still waiting after 3 years. If the Labor government had of prioritized tradies over anyone else to enter this country. To literally pluck people from overseas and give them immediate short term visa's then the labor shortages would have been alleviated in the short term enough for house construction to flow through to meet demand. I witnessed this scheme work in alleviating the housing crisis in Christchurch after the 2011 earthquake destroyed much of the city.
Instead what we got was people across the country witnessing others who were building, paying rent and a mortgage that was growing due to rate rises. Who were getting price increases for their build or worse yet their builder going broke and so in light of all this who would want to buy in such a market? Whats worse Mc Gowan thought it was great, his response was that the economy was booming and thats why the labor market was tight lol. What an absolute arrogant response as he knew very well that new home approvals dropping significantly meant that a slowdown was coming in the industry. It's largely the reason he left. He either had no idea how to fix a problem he largely created or most likely didn't care.
Now we have the lowest approval rates of new homes in years and this year there is expected to be a slowdown in the construction industry at a time when demand for housing has never been higher. Of course out of such a slowdown inflation will ease and hopefully building will become viable again but the shortfall of houses needed will mean the crisis gets even worse and so i do fear a even greater crisis is approaching down the road. It could be a few years before building picks up again however we don't just need it to pick up again to meet demand, we need more houses built here per year than what has ever been achieved in history.
So I see 2024 as being much worse than 2023 however this is the pain required to not just bring inflation down but for the banks to say they need to stimulate the economy again. Once the banks can stimulate economy with rate cuts the government needs to come up with a plan to run parallel with this to create the largest housing construction boom this country has seen in many decades to meet demand. They will need to recruit significant numbers of skilled workers to achieve this aswell as encourage people to jump on board with building a home taking heat off the established sector. It will have to be increased slowly however so the supply side of the industry can keep up with demand and adjust accordingly. Will it happen? Who knows
One issue in Sydney with no easy answer is the NIMBYs versus YIMBYs issue in relation to redevelopment in heritage areas. Then there is the issue with the apartment towers which have major defects. As well as issues with older blocks right along the coast having major concrete cancer (dealing with one in an IP and the corporate body have failed to reach a decision on what to do)
All a mess, but I have to say there are a good few young people in their twenties who simply do not want to be property owners, not that they cannot. We have a nephew like that, well paid and living somewhere much cheaper than Sydney. Gets his father so upset as he lives in a shared flat and spends all his money on travelling interstate to music festivals.
But Western Australia is very much its own world. Our travelling companions when we were in Europe and Morocco were from Perth, had been to many countries but only been “over east” once for three days when they had to go to a wedding.
I would be thinking the Covid response may have resulted in making the state less attractive to potential skilled immigrants?
One issue in Sydney with no easy answer is the NIMBYs versus YIMBYs issue in relation to redevelopment in heritage areas.
This house in today's SMH is apparently now heritage listed. For what reason, apart from wanting to maintain low density suburbia within spitting distance of the CBD, I have no idea.
Quote:
At the December 5 meeting, Inner West Council staff revealed that 43 per cent of the municipality is under some form of heritage protection, including all of Haberfield and much of Balmain.
Heritage listing the entirety of Haberfield is pretty funny really. Forty three percent of the entire LGA being heritage listed is bizarre. It's California bungalows not Versailles.
It is probably difficult to work out how old a building needs to be to have heritage value. When we were young these Californian bungalows were just old houses and not thought to be of any particular value. Now they are valued as representative of a particular era, as are the pre-federation terraces.
Just had a week in Randwick, dog sitting, and it is very interesting wandering about looking at the complete hodge-podge of styles there. I find it fascinating.
But Haberfield, which I know well, is valued because it was built in a consistent style and there are precious few examples of places like that in Sydney.
People cannot just demand to be able to be able to live in the most desirable suburbs. Decades ago, they were desirable. We used to joke that the eastern suburbs would be our compromise as he liked the inner west and I liked the nth shore. It was a joke as we could not afford the east then and if we went there now we would be giving up having a water view, free parking in our area and of course being able to see our local friends. Life in general is a compromise!
People cannot just demand to be able to be able to live in the most desirable suburbs.
It's not really about that though.
Should people be allowed to petition the council to heritage list someone else's property as happened with the house in that picture? If I own a 1,000sqm block in Haberfield should I have the right to sub-divide it or should I be blocked by my neighbour's use of heritage orders? I'm not against zoning restrictions or even heritage protection, but blanket heritage orders that are done for no other reason that to prevent any and all development are not OK.
Just because something is old doesn't mean it's worthy of preservation. This is the same council that deemed these disused sub-station as worthy of heritage protection. Thankfully, commonsense prevailed.
Quote:
But Greens councillor Marghanita da Cruz said the substations were “actually quite beautiful” and could be used in future to store batteries. “They’re not in any way something to scoff at,” she said.
Due to the covid lock-downs and shutting down the economy for two years effectively creating a backlog in the industry while bringing in migrants most of which won't contribute to the construction of houses it has meant we are in the mess we are.
I remember being in lock-down in New Zealand before we moved to Australia and all these young people sitting at home doing nothing loving the fact that the taxpayer was paying us all to sit at home. I remember thinking that when this is all over the economic consequences will be far greater and it will be the young who are most affected. Meanwhile in Western Australia when we moved there they completely closed the border to skilled migrants for two years while intentionally creating the greatest demand to build houses in the state's history with significant housing grants. Think about it, they shut down the production facilities that create the materials to build our homes every few months with lock-down after lock-down, they then stop the very people who can build houses from entering the state. Then they say to the population, here is taxpayers money to go and flood the market with demand for all of the materials that are now in short supply and a labor market that can't keep up. The result was a inflationary crisis that will take MANY years to fix and now the young people who were loving their few weeks or months off work are now priced out of a market they may never be able to enter. Worse though and i sometimes can't help but falling victim to this view myself but perhaps it's all planned. While the middle class is shrinking the wealthy are doing better than ever. Their equity is increasing, the average man's loss appears to be their gain.
Who knows but i actually find it laughable that Australians actually believed Labor wanted to fix this crisis. Fixing this crisis means housing becoming more affordable which means popping a bubble. It's the sole reason why Labor won't Prioritize and flood the market with enough tradies to build the houses Australia needs. Imagine that, house prices not just levelling off but dropping due to a flooding of housing into the market. There is NO other skill that Australia needs more today that Tradies because the the sole biggest issue in this country is the housing crisis. The government isn't stupid, they know how it can be fixed but they aren't trying to fix the housing crisis by making housing more affordable. They are trying to fix it by mainly relying on alternative ideas to housing such as creating more affordable densely populated apartments and guarantoring up to 40% of the price of new houses in the help to buy scheme to keep house prices overall very high
Well only a small part of the story. Turbo immigration into the state since Covid has exasperated the situation with regards to housing without coming any where close to addressing real labour issues.
As mentioned previously we need to get people back to working more than two or three days a week. We need to look at just who is coming into the state and for what purpose. So many things 'need' looking at but need not hold breath. All those things would, obviously assist greatly in the difficulties within the housing market if addressed.
The sudden increase in substantial numbers of a certain demographic is a matter of some concern as well. Checks on foreign students that they are here to perform what their visa states or simply being used for illegal activities.
Brisbane is now the third most expensive Australian city passing Melbourne. Sydney and Canberra are ahead. Australian house prices continue their ridiculous climb. Yet few questions are posed as to why we are continuing on the path to our demise in life quality.
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