I’ve now read RBA Governor, Glenn Stevens’ NSW housing affordability report released last week, and its highlight was the no uncertain terms description of the impossible task facing Sydney to build enough homes to keep pace with the city’s projected population growth:
The GSC growth targets envisage, roughly speaking, about 700,000 new dwellings in the Sydney region for an additional 1 ¾ million residents, over twenty years. There are about 1.7 million dwellings in the Sydney region now as a result of accumulated investment over the period since 1788. The plan is to add, in 20 years, 40 per cent in net terms to that stock. Such an outcome would require current rates of commencements, which are at a high, to be maintained, or exceeded, on average, over two decades, in a notoriously cyclical industry – and without costs escalating significantly. This is, to say the least, an ambitious goal.
