Easing planning restrictions isn’t the only problem that needs to be addressed to solve housing shortages.
The residential construction industry has been challenged by capacity constraints and higher costs, and consequently tight housing supply is flowing through to both prices for existing homes and the rental market.
This month we looked at the price surge seen four years on from the pandemic onset, a factor that has contributed to buyers facing the worst affordability in at least three decades.
Renters are also facing extremely tough conditions; vacancy rates are not far off record lows in most markets and rental prices have surged 42% across the capital cities and 41% in regional areas since the pandemic onset.
Over the past four years, rental vacancies have more than halved (-58%) across the capital cities and almost halved (-47%) in regional areas.
These data underscore the chronic shortage of housing, which, combined with Australia’s continuing (albeit more moderate) population growth, is expected to further drive up record-high house prices and rents.
Increasing the supply of housing is one factor in curbing the decline in affordability that poses challenges for so many.
Approvals for new construction remain challenging, inhibiting new supply. Many have pointed to the need to reform planning and zoning restrictions to unlock more housing supply and fast track approvals.
Victoria is streamlining planning and permitting processes, and the NSW government recently announced extensive reforms to help fast-track approvals for well-located middle-density homes.
Planning and zoning restrictions have made it tough to deliver on the number of homes we need in the right locations, and reforms will provide much needed higher development capacity over the long term.
But they do not address acute challenges that are contributing to persistent undersupply.
In the immediate term, unless we can ease construction capacity constraints and cost pressures, delivering enough new houses or apartments will be difficult and we will continue to see the housing and rental crisis worsen.
New builds sidelined as higher input costs squeeze developers
Unfortunately, the supply side of the housing market has fallen short in responding to substantial demand.
Residential approvals and commencements are both at their lowest in over a decade according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as industry-wide pressures weigh.
However, to understand some of the acute issues compounding the housing shortage we need to look at the data on how many approved homes are actually built.
There is a pipeline of homes that have been approved for construction where work is yet to begin.
At present, close to 1 in 5 approved homes are not flowing through to completions, which is a bigger drop off than has been seen throughout the past decade.
This larger attrition between proposed homes and completion partly reflects a backlog due to the slowed pace of building.
But it’s likely that, given it’s harder to make feasibility stack up due to labor and skills shortages and higher building materials and financing costs (in particular for multi-density projects) that many developments are being canceled or postponed.
Subdued activity in the off-the-plan apartment market and lower pre-sales rates are also hindering the feasibility of new projects.
Developers bringing new stock to market will only do so if they are confident they can meet their internal rate of return hurdle.
That means a project may be shelved because higher labor, materials and financing costs compress margins resulting in a potentially lower return on investment.
Despite being approved, projects that are no longer feasible due to cost increases will typically not proceed.
Skilled labor shortages and an uptick in insolvencies across the building industry have also slowed the commencement of new builds adding further pressure resulting in projects being shelved.
As a result, the value of completed projects is failing to match proposed work by a larger than usual amount and these not-yet-commenced dwellings represent a large number of approved homes which need to be delivered.
Barriers hindering homebuilding need to be addressed not just at the approval and planning phase, but right through to completion.
Planning and zoning reforms will not help with immediate challenges like capacity constraints, high material costs, and financing costs.
Why we need to almost double building activity
We’re currently completing just under 170,000 new homes a year and starting even fewer, which is below the prior decade average, and declining approvals are signaling that it’s only going to get worse.
Using the recently estimated attrition between approval and completion, that annual completion figure could trend towards 140,000 unless something changes.
That would be just over half of the 240,000 homes a year that need to be built to meet the goal of 1.2 million new homes by 2029, which is further outweighed by the number of new homes required for new arrivals if average household sizes stay the same .
That means we’re undershooting the target by around 40%, but if completions continue trending lower, an almost 80% increase in building activity would be required to meet the 240,000 target.
Given the constraints hampering the construction sector, it is hard to imagine doubling capacity and fast-tracking construction to deliver these homes fast enough. There is an urgent need to enhance the building industry’s ability to provide these homes.
The good news is that pressures like higher building and finance costs have stabilized, albeit at a higher level.
Interest rates remain on hold and are expected to start moving lower late this year or early next, Additionally, the continued upturn in home prices allows better pricing conditions to rebuild margins. Both factors that could act as a catalyst for green shoots.
However, the chronic undersupply of housing worsened by current constraints, is leading to a continued deficit that market forces alone are unlikely to resolve.
Incentivising and facilitating greater supply of new homes
The construction shortfall means there will likely be an ongoing shortage of new builds and homes to rent, with a prolonged imbalance between the flow of supply and housing demand likely to further pressure affordability for renters and buyers.
Given the acute shortage and continued strong demand for housing these challenges require quick addressing beyond planning and zoning reform to stimulate investment and pre-sales, and uplift output, fast-tracking new build to sell supply.
Labor shortages remain a critical issue, underscoring the need for targeted migration policy to address skills shortages and meet the high demand for labor in the construction sector. In fact, continued labor shortages for skilled trades are a primary driver of ongoing price increases.
Reintroducing stamp duty incentives for new homes could also drive the pipeline of proposed and new construction forward and encourage new homes and new rental stock to be delivered more quickly.
Replacing stamp duty with an annual land tax and encouraging downsizing are also ways to better utilize existing housing stock helping to alleviate the housing shortage.
Industry productivity, innovation and advanced manufacturing techniques also play a role. By arresting the construction industry productivity decline seen over the past five years and enhancing productivity, existing industry output can be increased.
Addressing these more immediate issues hindering the expansion of housing supply could facilitate a faster supply increase and help put the brakes on the housing crisis.
As the population grows, a combination of helping new supply and policies that encourage better use of existing homes can help ease supply constraints.
