The Australian Housing & Urban Research Institute (AHURI) has warned that the shortage of affordable rental housing has risen since 2011 and will continue to worsen in coming years. The AHURI estimates that the shortage of affordable homes for the lowest 20 per cent of income earners now tops 212,000. The lead researcher, Swinburne University’s Professor Kath Hulse, says that neither the public or private sector are building enough affordable homes. The AHURI has concluded that the federal government needs to build at least 200,000 affordable homes over the next 10 years:
The private rental sector (PRS) is the fastest growing part of the Australian housing system, increasing by 17 per cent 2011–2016, more than twice the rate of household growth (7 per cent), continuing a trend observed since 2001.
There is longer-term structural change in the private rental market, notably an increased concentration of supply at mid-market levels and more middle and higher income private renter households. • The research found an acute, and increasing, national shortage of private rental dwellings for Q1 households (lowest quintile household incomes): 212,000 dwellings in 2016…
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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.
