Housing

Denmark has a housing problem. Not Denmark the country, but Denmark Western Australia – population 2,375 – which happens to be the least affordable town in the state and “ one of the most inefficient communities in WA when it comes to the balance between large family homes and smaller dwellings, with a ratio of 1.22 bedrooms per resident”.

Who has fared the worst from the recent bout of inflation and ongoing cost of living crisis? It’s not who you might think from reading headline after headline about Australia’s rental crisis:

Australia has a housing problem: we simply haven’t built enough of them to accommodate our growing population, which the government estimates will continue to increase from around 26.5 million to 40.5 million by 2050. All else equal, that means we need about 50% more housing than we have today, and the old strategy of simply building out forever just won’t cut it. Believe it or not, some cities are actually getting less dense:

According to this tweet (usual caveats apply), a new Deutsche Bank report implied that Australia’s housing crisis is about to get much, much worse: “[W]e estimate that net new migration will be around 530,000 for the financial year 2022-23, but only around 180,000 dwellings will be constructed.

National Cabinet – where Australia’s States and federal government get together to try to agree on national policy – reached an agreement this week to: “Build 1.2 million homes over 5 years. A better deal for renters. Planning reforms.”