Hometrack's Brendan Darcy recently released analysis claiming that the ABS data significantly under-estimated the housing supply in Australia, because it only counts "occupied dwellings". But on census night in 2006, the ABS reported 830,000 unoccupied dwellings. "We estimate there are at least 10 million dwellings in Australia compared with ABS data showing occupied dwellings of 8.3 million. The extra one to two million dwellings consist of a mixture of housing awaiting sale or development, vacant dwellings, second homes, and abandoned homes," Darcy concluded.
Rebecca Conroy on 26 Mar 14"hey are not increasing affordability. They are not more environmentally sustainable. They are increasing housing supply, mainly for local and global elites to accumulate capital. A major consequence of the Australian government's taxation and regulatory regimes regarding housing has been to increase prices by encouraging demand for housing as a commodity, rather than a place to live. The various inquiries into the state of the Australian housing market should look at not just the regulations on foreign investment, but at the taxation regimes that encourage the home-grown approach. Most importantly the inquiries should ask: what is the effect of Australian regulation and taxation regimes on what is being built, and for whom?"
