Kouk half right on housing affordability

By Leith van Onselen

Long-time defender of Australia’s expensive housing, Stephen Koukoulas (aka “the Kouk”), has finally acknowledged that housing affordability is a problem in Australia. He’s even offered some solutions. Let’s take a look, via The Guardian:

Given the bipartisan policy approach to immigration, which contributes the lion’s share of the 350,000 to 400,000 increase in Australia’s population each year, prices are best contained via a sufficient increase in supply.

By 2022 Australia’s population will be about 2 million more than it is today. Whether these new Australians rent or buy a dwelling is secondary to the fact that the number of dwellings in Australia needs to increase by about 800,000 just to meet that demographic demand. The current level of building approvals is just enough to meet that level of growth having been stronger than that during 2016 (noting that there are around 40,000 dwellings demolished and replaced with new ones each year).

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.