Over the weekend, The SMH reported how Sydney faces a shortfall of at least 134,000 dwellings over the next five years amid the Albanese Government’s record immigration program:
The analysis was a stark turnaround from the 2021 NSW State Budget, which said that the state’s housing shortage had evaporated following a period of negative net overseas migration:
Thus, the collapse in immigration over the pandemic all but solved NSW’s housing shortage.
But now that the Albanese Government has ramped immigration to unprecedented levels, housing shortages will once again become a permanent feature.
Enter the e61 Institute think tank, which has released a report showing how mass immigration, chronic housing shortages and high housing costs are driving young families out of Sydney:
“In recent decades Sydney’s population has grown about 1% per year. But this is more than accounted for by inward overseas migration. Focusing on domestic migration, Sydney has been losing 0.5% of its population each year for about 20 years”:
“Housing affordability is a prime suspect. Sydney people are leaving the areas where housing prices have risen fastest (Figure 2)”.
“For every extra percentage point that an area’s housing prices grew in the five years to 2016, an extra 0.2% of the population left in the following five years (based on least squares estimation)”.
“People in their 30s are leaving the fastest (Figure 3), the age when families grow and need more housing”:
“Most are choosing less-expensive nearby coastal areas, including the Wollongong and Newcastle regions and the Gold Coast (Figure 4)”:
“These trends may suggest that unaffordable housing is driving large-scale labour reallocation across Australia”.
The above data highlights why the number one solution to Sydney’s housing crisis is to lower net overseas migration to historical levels of around 100,000 people a year (from nearly 400,000 currently):
Net overseas migration needs to be at levels commensurate with the nation’s ability to supply new homes and infrastructure.
Sadly, the seeds of the housing crisis were sown when the federal government more than doubled net overseas migration from 2005, which the Albanese Government has expanded even more.
Housing shortages are now a permanent feature of Australia, with Sydney the most badly impacted.
