Australia needs to build 186,000 new houses a year: HIA

The Housing Industry Australia has released a report that analyses the nation’s future building requirements. The report has revealed that the largest policy challenge faced by the Australian property market will be ensuring a sufficient supply of new dwellings to house our growing and ageing population.

“Within a plethora of potential scenarios, the most likely outcome is an annual new home building requirement between now and 2050 that is considerably higher than was has been achieved over the last 20 years,” HIA economist, Geordan Murray said.

“In a scenario where Australia’s population and its real incomes grow at a medium rate – a scenario we believe most plausible – the nation will need to build an average of around 186,000 dwellings per annum.”

The total requirement comprises 152,000 homes to provide housing for new households and between 30,000 to 35,000 dwellings to offset demolished homes and to satisfy the demand for additional housing attributable to a rise in real household incomes.

“In 2013/14, the number of new homes built was about the same as the number of new homes demanded by the population during the year. Unfortunately a match of this kind is an aberration – throughout much of the last decade there was a considerable mismatch between the level of demand for housing and the amount of new home building,” Murray said.

“The challenge for governments is to ensure that policy settings will enable alignment of demand and supply to persist over the long term. This is a policy area deserving of prioritised and coordinated action from all levels of government.”

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