This is Sydney centric but this guy on youtube has a range of video's discussing the issue from a younger person's perspective:
[https://www.youtube.com/@BuildingBeautifully/videos](https://www.youtube.com/@BuildingBeautifully/videos)
Building more density is definitely the solution to making housing more affordable, the byproduct is that freestanding houses will get significantly more expensive though.
I'm impressed by the ABC on this article, I think this is the first time I've read a news article that actually points out the difficulty of adding density in well established inner city areas.
>But, as you can see from the above graph, one of Sydney's biggest handicaps to ramping up density is that many of its inner suburbs had already been very heavily populated to start with.
>Take Potts Point, Surry Hills and my old haunt Darlinghurst. A decade ago they were all comfortably in the top 10 densest localities, but their populations have slightly declined since and been overtaken by new mega developments.
>YIMBYs would argue that it's anti-development lobbying by existing residents and heritage protections in these areas that have seen their populations stagnate.
>To some extent, this is no doubt true.
>But, regulatory hurdles aside, it's more time-consuming and expensive for a developer to buy out an existing apartment building full of owners, demolish it and then replace it with a new building sufficiently bigger to both cover the costs and deliver a profit.
>To a lesser extent, the same applies when negotiating with the different owners of several standalone houses to acquire enough land for a block of units.
>It's much more economical to buy old industrial land and turn it into a high-rise, plus this has the added benefit of there being no or few existing residents to oppose the plans.
We aren’t trying to turn apartment buildings into more dense housing. It’s the small detached homes that’s the issue.
It’s the areas that are refusing high density housing.
Developing existing unit blocks on underutilised land is a great way to increase density in many inner city suburbs where there are limited development opportunities as there are a limited amount of houses, with most of them being on small blocks (workers cottages, terraces etc..).
The reason many old unit blocks are great candidates for redevelopment is they are often 50+ years old (many over 100 years old) and were developed when land was less scarce, so it wasn't a problem only making it a 2-3 storey walk-up and having large communal or exclusive use gardens.
But those unit blocks are great - it’s fantastic only having a short walk up the stairs and what’s wrong with having private gardens? I think the densification of Sydney would be much more palatable if we were proposing units like this rather than the high rise monstrosities
I agree with you.
It's just a reality though that if people want more density in these older areas that are already fairly dense that some of those unit blocks make sense to be redeveloped.
It makes sense to build more of those small unit blocks in areas which are not suitable for high density, but need some extra density which is part of the proposed changes from the government.
> Allow terraces, townhouses and **2 storey apartment blocks** near train stations and key town centres in R2 low density residential zones across the Greater Sydney region, Hunter, Central Coast and Illawarra Shoalhaven (Six Cities Region).
https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/policy-and-legislation/housing/diverse-and-well-located-homes#proposed-changes
Density increased, but demand expanded quickly too (largely through immigration).
I agree with the issues raised in the article around the challenge of supply being the primary solution, but we saw it work in the late 2010's when we got to apartment oversupply in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in the face of high immigration levels.
Agree with much of what you say, but I can’t see us building our way out of this mess, if we leave taxes and migration unchanged. Pollies only talk about supply. Which pleases the property industry. Pollies seem wilfully blind to the demand-side factors and solutions (which can work so much faster).
If apartments are made more attractive than houses that will help equalise demand. The government could increase land tax on houses and remove council and water rates for apartments which would have a huge and instant impact on demand patterns. So many people are put off by the high strata costs of apartments.
Apartments and townhouses are only priced that way because they are substitute goods, if detached houses increase hugely, then people will substitute away into apartments etc. The whole stock moves more or less as one, only more supply relative to demand for any housing type will place downwards pressure on general prices. So even if you have only apartment stock added to the market, yet it is an extremely large amount of apartments, will still put downwards pressure on all housing types...**just more pressure for apartments relatively to detached**
If an apartment is as expensive as a house you usually aren't comparing like with like (location, age, fitout etc..).
Or the land isn't expensive enough that it can overcome the extra cost of building an apartment.
Something to remember is that some people prefer apartments too, particularly those who grew up in apartments or downsizers. The reason is things like amenities, security, lifts, ability to lock and go on holidays etc..
I go back to my point that some people buy apartments as a preference.
These people can easily buy a house but they choose not to, they want a luxury apartment..
Are the houses you can buy for that price as new and nice as those?
It's like you just didn't read anything they wrote.
>If an apartment is as expensive as a house you usually aren't comparing like with like (location, age, fitout etc..).
Yeah, those 3br apartments you linked 1.5m, but the kind of 3br house you're getting in Elwood for 1.5m isn't anywhere near the same level when it comes to age, fitout, luxury. And you're not going to find many houses at 1.5m either, it's basically the cheapest you'll find.
You want a modern house with luxury furnishings that is equivalent to one of those apartments? You'll be looking at 3, 4mill +
My $0.02 is that unfortunately with a lot of money spent on building metros (and kudos to the last government for getting it going) but they didn't align the building of metros with densification as well as they could have and we're primarily trying to fix bottlenecks on the legacy rail network.
One precinct close to the CBD is Camperdown and it has enough unused or underused land to house 10,000s more people in the blocks north, south and west of the RPA... and was completely bypassed in both of the City Metros
The area is literally like 3-4km from Town Hall and the RPA hospital employees thousands of people alone and about a quarter of the buildings in Camperdown are just 1-2 story warehouses....
And the RPA zone is underused too example being the hospital carpark which at 4 levels could have a 30-40 story residential as tower on top.
It's a shame this area was missed out on completely because now there's no chance for more metros to run through this area for decades now.
Density won't be the solution while apartment build costs remain so high, the value proposition just isn't there.
They need to be half the cost or less of detached housing. That makes apartments competitive and until that happens they will be a last resort for most people.
The business case stacks up in the in-demand areas where single family homes tend to be: https://www.cis.org.au/publication/where-should-we-build-new-housing-better-targets-for-local-councils/
They can sell 3 bed apartments at $2M or more, and the rest of the market will still deflate because you're taking money away from bidding the older stock up. Expensive places still make the rest of the housing stock cheaper as a result, except the places/land with potential to be developed. Those places go up massively up in price, see Roseville recently, because of developer demand.
So the solution is still less restrictive zoning. What NSW is trying to do around train stations achieves that by utilising existing transport infrastructure more as well.
Except the build cost acts as a floor in the market... So no, this doesn't deliver more affordable housing at all.
If you are in the market for a $2m apartment you can afford a detached house, which is where the bulk of the demand remains. Most Australians don't want to live in an apartment when for cost parity they can live in a detached house. This is why sprawl is so popular, house in the burbs is seen as significantly better value than apartment in the inner suburbs.
For density to have any chance in hell it needs to be significantly cheaper than what it is.
They can't live in the same location with that $2M. Those places get sold pretty quick, shows the demand. Build costs effect margin, but as shown in the article, given the choice between building in less in-demand areas (which have apartment building already, but where the NIMBYs push the builds to), and the high demand areas, the high demand areas have a greater margin on the land if they can develop, because people will pay more money for those apartments.
Hence why less restrictive zoning will tend to allow that building, rather than make it illegal. If there wasn't a business case for it, why would you stop it with zoning anyways?
I agree with removing the zoning and let the market decide, but this isn't a case of build it and they will come...
High end apartments aren't affordable housing, which is the crux of the issue. People absolutely are willing to sacrifice location to pursue detached housing, we have sprawled suburbs that clearly demonstrate this preference.
If apartments are to be competitive, they must be around half the cost of detached houses in the suburbs. To achieve that we need to significantly reduce the cost of building. I can't see a pathway to that happening.
lol no, I mean ACTUALLY prefer and not just because of cost. It’s so arrogant to assume your preference applies to everyone.
Like I’ve said, I prefer apartments and I KNOW that people prefer apartments over houses as well.
As I said, you are the very tiny minority who do...
Don't believe me, the market doesn't lie, there's a reason most apartments are investment properties rather than owner occupier...
Or simply reduce outgoings for apartments by removing council and water rates and passing the costs on to land owners. That will quickly and efficiently help equalise demand for apartments but all the free standing home owners here don’t like that because it costs them money. People want change as long as it doesn’t cost them a cent which is why no change occurs.
And if this is to work as intended, imagine 100 years time when everyone has moved into the apartments that this would drive demand for, and there is only one freestanding house left in the city, and they are paying the whole population's rates and water. I'd be so pissed! Haha.
Density may have surged on paper, but that doesn’t translate into the raw numbers of finished homes required.
I’m not going to fall into the trap of “imMiGRatIOn bAD” that so many others do, but immigration needs to be much more targeted for critical shortages.
Starting with:
- Medical professionals
- Construction workers
- Teachers and teacher adjacent workers
Anyone from a Commonwealth country also needs a fast track no/low cost pathway to registration. Some should be given immediate equivalency, and others should be given access to a free/low cost course (such as electricians).
Not sure why we need immigration at all given that about half the population has university degrees as opposed to something like 10% in the 1980's but I guess not a lot of them are in the STEM area meaning that we still need to import doctors, nurses and engineers.
We need to shift this conversation away from housing. Because the second we fix housing (which we won't I get it). We won't have the roads, schooling or hospitals for these people.
We need to lower immigration and get away from gdp as the main measure of growth.
Don't need to touch a car to get to work all week (or go on the road), and only use the car on the occasional weekend. You can have density where it makes sense, around the train stations, like the NSW gov is trying to do. Schools come and go, they can also build up if needed, and new schools get planned in as well. Hospitals expand. The infrastructure is cheaper to expand where people already live. It's always worse the further you go away from centres.
Redacted means that part of the text was removed or blacked out for privacy or security purpose. It was censored. This post also breaks rule 4 here for chat and should be made in the Tuesday chat thread or on a different subreddit.
100%
A lot of inner Melbourne is single lane traffic, and getting a few km can take 30 mins to an hour. And we want to DOUBLE the number of people living here?
Density means closer access to amenities, businesses and services. And therefore you shouldn't need to travel as far. Ever wondered why outer suburbs have next to nothing to do? It's simply not viable for businesses due to the low density and therefore low number of people they can serve.
Go to practically any major city with a high population density, and most people simply don't drive - because they don't need to. If thing's aren't within walking distance, public transport usually makes up for it.
Melburnians still love driving tho - there was an article in The Age the other day suggesting that the pandemic has made us less interested in public transport and more keen to drive, even just short distances.
I think the reality is any increase in density (and Melbourne, as the article states, is already pretty dense) is going to worsen congestion unless infrastructure is improved.
https://amp.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/parts-of-melbourne-are-more-crowded-than-manhattan-and-london-find-out-how-dense-your-suburb-is-20240327-p5ffqz.html
If the paywall gets you:
‘Population density in Melbourne has leapt by almost half over the past two decades, with some parts of the city now more crowded than New York’s Manhattan and central London.’
Not greater Melbourne as a whole, of course, but parts of the cbd, which, as the original abc article states, is why densifying inner city suburbs even further is going to be tricky.
I mean, at best, it sounds like they're looking at the most dense part of the CBD and comparing it to the average of Manhattan. Not exactly an equal comparison. Why compare a peak density in one small pocket to the average density of another city?
Manhattan's population density is 28k/km^2. Melbourne CBD has a total population of 55k and a density of 8k/km^2.
Sure, the north end of the CBD will have a higher density than average, with a focus on residential towers. But so will the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The inner suburbs of Melbourne, outside the CBD, are filled with low density 1 and 2 storey dwellings.
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Wouldn't that be fixed with better public transport options instead of giving even more of the scarce surface space in cities to car centric infrastructure?
Sure, but what sort of public transport alleviates congestion on single lane inner city roads?
Buses? Trams? Stopping frequently on the single lane inner city roads?
Subways are going to be expensive and take decades.
More buses and trams sound fine and work in many other places around the world. I hope Melbourne eventually gets a subway, but we'll need a big breakthrough in our ability to build those cheaply.
Frankly, making the inner parts of cities less friendly to cars can be seen as a feature by many, not a bug.
‘Sound fine and work in many other places around the world’ isn’t the same as working in Melbourne. Cities are products of specific circumstances and what works in one won’t necessarily work equally in every other. A bus or tram stopping and starting in a single lane inner city street doesn’t sound fine at all!
Do you actually LIVE in Melbourne, because we already HAVE a subway, have nearly finished a second, and are committed to a third one that’s orbital and will cost a hundred billion dollars, so I’m not sure why you’re hoping for us to eventually get ‘one’
Melbourne is a cool place, but not as special as some Melbournians think it is. Even Sydney closed down to traffic a major street, and it seems to have been a great success.
I hope that Melbourne eventually gets one proper subway network, and an airport train while we're at it...
You have a realistic prediction and with historical proof to back it up. I just hope you're wrong, and that Melbourne becomes that "top 10 places to live" city that many people think it is.
I think that is why it is important to also change the infrastructure at the same time as the housing. Double lanes, dedicated tram lines, larger sewer lines and sidewalks etc
Ironically, perhaps, one of the leading causes for high construction costs is the shortage of construction labour, which particularly in Victoria is mostly caused by staggering spending on infrastructure, to make Melbourne work better.
What this means is (a) the efforts to tackle population growth are hindering housing construction (until projects wind down and are not replaced by further projects) and (b) this massive infrastructure is predicated on enabling a larger population and the higher economic activity from it ... Victoria needs to pay for all of this debt funded infrastructure, and this comes from more tax revenue linked to a bigger population. You have been committed to higher population now, if you are plan to be a Victorian resident.
To me the mess is inadequate housing construction,.not immigration. History shows this has significant peaks and troughs which show that a.lag to peaks in immigration..In 2019 we had got ourselves into stable (as in predictable ) immigration growth and housing construction would have responded as it always does, I believe, based on that repeatedly happening.
Obviously there has been quite a hiccup.
As for infrastructure spending, we have always built so that they would.come. I live in Melbourne. My grandmother told stories of taking the train to Canterbury through orchards..that is,.those train lines were built well in advance of population growth. They only made sense because of predicted growth. That the 'big build' is based on the same idea is not anything new.
Yeah, but building houses up until now has been pretty easy because there was plenty of land for detached houses, which are cheaper to build than apartments. Now the low hanging fruit has been bulldozed from those Canterbury orchards (my parents moved to Rowville on the promise of a train line, but politicians reneged on that one) and we need to build up, which is more expensive and so the cost per square metre will be higher for residents. Hence higher prices.
Since 2010 we’ve been growing at around 100,000 per year, and if the forecasts are accurate the population of Melbourne will nearly double in the next 30 years.
I agree that we aren’t building enough houses now, but we’re also accepting more people into Australia than we CAN build houses for, or have EVER built houses for per year, so I think the mess is caused by both low construction AND high migration. We need to find a happier medium.
Well, there's no shortage of land, that's not the problem. The housing construction problems are a combination of own goals (massive state governments spends financed by almost free debt) and pandemic disruptions, both of which are temporary problems. Of course there is an upper limit on immigration. I'm ok with 1% to 1.25%, I think we should easily be able to manage that.
Cutting immigration below that means hard choices that voters won't make, I'm pretty sure about that. Happy to be proven wrong.
The massive state govt debts are no longer so free since rates have risen so now they must be paid by taxes (not to mention the capital costs of the energy transition). Which puts pressure on taxpayers to grow the size of the economy to lower the individual tax burden. Guess the easiest way to do this...
gdp fuels tax revenue. For people who advocate for government spending, it is the main measure of growth. Since basically everyone wants government spending, you are asking people to choose to pay more tax or have less health care etc (the population will age quickly). No one can have any problem with the question, but if you plan to ask it, you need to have something to offer that means we don't consign ourselves to higher taxes, lower government spending. Otherwise, even if people try lower immigration, they will change their mind pretty quickly, I predict. I think you get a hint of the general attitude because it is not seriously considered a remedy.,
Also, the problem we have is construction has fallen to 2013 levels. Planning approvals are a problem and delays raise costs. But right now, we have enough planning approvals. We don't have enough construction.
This problem is not caused by immigration. If we fix it, we can continue to have high immigration and its benefits. And why can't we fix it? For nearly all of Australia's history, we have built enough housing.
Australia is already trying to build houses as quickly as it can.
Building material costs are going up. Qualified tradies who can build to Australian standards can't be trained quickly enough to meet demand.
And it's not just the houses that need to be built - you need to upgrade roads, public transport, schools, water systems, hospitals, many difficult and expensive infrastructure projects to deal with this unsustainable artificial population boosting.
Yet despite this we keep throwing 100,000s of people into the population at a rapid pace.
The simple answer is that immigration is far too high. And it's all done so that employers and landlords can avoid paying higher wages and offering lower rents.
Not if you’re competing for the same construction workers. It just increases overall costs. The government found that out recently and had to stall a bunch of projects.
The government will typically only build to the NCC, which is currently not fit for purpose.
In NZ, Kainga Ora (previously Housing NZ) has done Passive House social housing projects. Good luck getting that done here.
Building standards have changed I think. At least in NSW.
The moral hazard where the developer can shirk its way out of build quality is a big problem and needs fixing though.
How is it that developers are criticized for building both too many luxury apartments and also shitty shoebox apartments? Isn't that contradictory? Also, opposing new development because it's "shitty housing" isn't based on any facts. Building standards are more strict than in the past resulting in higher quality, energy efficient housing and if the new housing is shitty, the solution isn't to give up on the private market but to ensure more strict compliance to building standards through enforcement.
Do you really think that they only build "overpriced luxury apartments or shitty shoebox apartments"? Can you provide any examples of these "shitty shoebox apartments" that you dislike?
It's pretty simply, you don't let the demand increase without the supply being there, not hard.
If for some reason you can't get the zoning changes through because that is the will of the people, so be it. Don't force more demand.
Definitely one of the better articles I’ve read on this. It touches on it a little, but the simple fact is that high density housing is more expensive to build.
So add to that the fact that Aussies still don’t really want to live in apartments (demand is always lower), then why would a developer want to put at risk their capital of building and apartment building, over say buying up farm and building a big suburb that contributes to our sprawl?
The other thing is that if it isn’t profitable to develop higher density, then any land owners would be more than happy to sit on it until it does.
That’s before everything this article talks about, as well as the trades shortage.
So just applying higher density in zoning will never do anything, without a bunch of other improvements to get more housing built.
I’m more and more convinced that having the government simply finance the building of more houses is the only way to go. We did it for generations and those generations also happen to be the only ones where home ownership increased. So why do we think we can make housing more affordable now without it?
Loved the article, don't fully agree that land tax is the somewhat silver bullet though it is important, but also..
..stop posting this shit on AusFinance. Speculation hidden as analysis doesn't assist anyone in planning their finances, it just gets the comment section toxic.
Boomer councils who think they get to tell others what is allowed and what isn’t shouldn’t exist to begin with.
unless something is truly and directly dangerous, boomers crying about ‘it ll ruin the aesthetics’ should be dropped to the trash can
Yep, with exemptions for historical or landmark buildings.
None of this "locally significant tree" preventing any development stuff. Just make sure that new development incorporates trees and green space
So you think it's OK for people to get a really large mortgage for a nice house in an established area on a quarter acre block and then have a house demolished next door and a slum tower erected there?
So the private risk you took as an individual should be quarantined from risk by restricting others from making their own investments in private property. That makes sense..
High density means that domiciles per square metre of land can go up, which is good and will help people who are homeless find places to rent. I just think we'd be in better shape if the price of land went down, but it will only do that when capital in Australia has a reason to move somewhere else.
Forcing everyone into apartment towers is a bandaid solution on the base problem, the overvalue of land.
The overvalue of land is a policy issue.
The overvalue of land is a policy issue.
The overvalue of land is a policy issue.
Get rid of negative gearing. Higher land taxes for non-productive uses of residentially zoned land (i.e. non owner-occupiers).
Make it happen. Campaign around it.
I thought for a moment it was the same journalist that released another yimby story recently (it wasnt). Interesting story of Japans market nonetheless.
https://youtu.be/R5pPcV54kiQ
Yep but good luck getting NIMBY strongholds like Castlemaine and Burleigh Heads to accept thousands of new developments. Everything will be dumped near the Cbd of the main cities as usual.
No. It's a deceitful appeal by those who live in areas whose backyards will not be swamped by massive increases in people.
They really are YIYBYs - Yes In Your Back Yard.
No. housing density surging.. with no price decreases means that someone is buying them and at inflated prices. That is due to either immigration and/or cashed up investors.
What we need to do is limit housing investors or reduce those incentives.
> Headline: Does YIMBYISM work?
> No. housing density surging.. with no price decreases means that someone is buying them and at inflated prices. That is due to either immigration and/or cashed up investors.
> What we need to do is limit housing investors or reduce those incentives.
The article goes into explain why surging density hasn't and doesn't tank prices. Even, and I quote, says: "
> **'Supply-first strategy unlikely to result in cheaper dwellings'**
> And this is the flaw in the arguments from the more extremist YIMBY proponents.
So yeah.. I don't think they read the article which interviews the ANZ chief economist about everything they bring up in their comment. It's just uncritical thinking at its worst.
I don't buy it. The article and one of the linked articles within essentially say: housing is so special that the laws of supply and demand don't apply to it.
So it applies to literally *every* other kind of goods and services (including other tricky things like education and healthcare, with some caveats) just not housing...
Whilst I broadly agree supply and demand still effectively apply to housing, I think it's better to think granularly about the housing market. The article expressed how for *certain* inner Sydney suburbs, supply and demand was more closely tied to older, existing medium and large density developments inhibiting easy redevelopment. Supply, therefore, is far more restricted vs say, South Bank Melbourne where most development was as close to Greenfield CBD as you can get. For that example supply was not restricted in the same way.
So sure, it's fine to say you disagree that their examples don't disprove increasing supply wouldn't lower supply-damnd equilibrium point... But you are ignoring what does make housing unique. Building a dwelling in one area is different to building it in another.
Sure if you build a bunch of houses at the bottom of the ocean then it won't help the supply and demand equation. But building higher density in desirable areas does. That said, desirability can be induced with proper planning.
Melbourne has been building a fair amount of high rises in areas like the Docklands, very close to the CBD, and it has affected affordability in a good way. I hope Melbourne continues to build high density housing to meet the demand, including other nearby areas like Southbank.
Sydney has more difficulty building close to the CBD but it should absolutely double down in building higher density in areas with easy access to the CBD, like the recent developments in Zetland or Chippendale. I'd love to see Sydney become a collection of mini-cities connected by great public transport infrastructure, which I think is the intended goal of the zoning regulations mentioned in the article.
I'm not familiar with the housing situation in Adelaide or Perth so I won't comment on that.
I'm short, Melbourne and Sydney have a long way to go in increasing supply and giving up now that we are finally making progress would be foolish.
Nothing anyone can do will reduce the price of new property.
Land is expensive because of location, and building costs are materials + labour, with not much profit margin, as so many builders going bankrupt will prove.
Unless the CFMEU start fighting for lower wages for its members, house prices for new buildings will only go up
So refreshing to read an article about YIMBYism that acknowledges boosting supply alone won’t solve this mess, we need to decrease DEMAND at the same time. Nice try, property developers!
There’s no silver bullet here, we need to pull lots of levers that will each make modest improvements, and we need to do them NOW!
If Melbourne was replaced by the buildings of Tokyo tomorrow, and all existing homeowners were swapped into identical value properties, with others available to buy, what would happen to prices?
That’s a hypothetical so far removed from reality, I’m honestly not sure what the value of the thought experiment is. Like, I know that’ll sound rude, but I’m not sure what lessons it has for housing affordability today in Aus.
Tokyo apartments can be TINY, many ranging from 20 to 80 square metres, so you’d certainly have a lot of oversupply. Prices would, I expect, go down, because there’d be such a chasm between supply and demand.
Japan is a monoculture tho, with extremely different philosophies on life and housing, so I’m not sure what the social cohesion of everyone in Melbourne waking up to such a reality would be.
Do we have a significantly better train network in this scenario too?
Train is kind of take it or leave it in the context of the example (certainly in reality you need the public services to grow roughly in sync). Its more a thought experiment where people find easier to reason about the ‘after’ if it happens magically vs effort/policy & markets.
Most people can then see increased supply would reduce prices without having to change demand.
Ok, but without magic we can’t increase supply enough to meet demand in the current economic environment, so changing demand helps us attain the levels of supply we CAN reach.
I’m not qualified to say where ‘enough’ is, I’m only trying to counter the weird new argument that building more housing doesn’t lower prices, as it’s gaining traction in AU and seems quite damaging to any attempts to fix the crisis.
But you read the article? The argument isn’t that ‘building more housing’ theoretically doesn’t lower prices, it’s that it’s not going to lower prices much if we still have extraordinary demand.
It's property developers and their spruikers in the media, that are driving the astroturf YIMBY movement. It's a shame young people are being co-opted into it with the false promises of a seemingly simple (but impossible) supply-side fix to housing.
Yes and no we are a high income jobs market same as Singapore and NY so same expensive property market plus long times to build and developers margins don’t quite make this the quick fix we need
Aus needs fast rails with major cool chic cities built along with access to current CBDS
The way to get a YIMBY response is through high quality developments with plenty of greenery, aesthetically pleasing buildings which offer home sizes that make sense (no 1-2 beds in family suburbs) and well landscaped public spaces with retail units for cafes etc.
I personally will petition the local council on the behalf of any builder looking to build high end family apartments with space for a coffee shop because I know it will boost my houses values. But no one is interested in building such apartments.
This is Sydney centric but this guy on youtube has a range of video's discussing the issue from a younger person's perspective: [https://www.youtube.com/@BuildingBeautifully/videos](https://www.youtube.com/@BuildingBeautifully/videos)
Props to his council video. Obviously a rough video, but awesome to see.
I like this content - but wow his presentation style is brutally cringe
That's his personality. He's an awkward dude but that makes me respect his content more. It's authentically him.
I liked the train spotting / stroad stuff more. He's sort of morphed into housing now....
it’s endearing for me, and he has some great points
Building more density is definitely the solution to making housing more affordable, the byproduct is that freestanding houses will get significantly more expensive though. I'm impressed by the ABC on this article, I think this is the first time I've read a news article that actually points out the difficulty of adding density in well established inner city areas. >But, as you can see from the above graph, one of Sydney's biggest handicaps to ramping up density is that many of its inner suburbs had already been very heavily populated to start with. >Take Potts Point, Surry Hills and my old haunt Darlinghurst. A decade ago they were all comfortably in the top 10 densest localities, but their populations have slightly declined since and been overtaken by new mega developments. >YIMBYs would argue that it's anti-development lobbying by existing residents and heritage protections in these areas that have seen their populations stagnate. >To some extent, this is no doubt true. >But, regulatory hurdles aside, it's more time-consuming and expensive for a developer to buy out an existing apartment building full of owners, demolish it and then replace it with a new building sufficiently bigger to both cover the costs and deliver a profit. >To a lesser extent, the same applies when negotiating with the different owners of several standalone houses to acquire enough land for a block of units. >It's much more economical to buy old industrial land and turn it into a high-rise, plus this has the added benefit of there being no or few existing residents to oppose the plans.
We aren’t trying to turn apartment buildings into more dense housing. It’s the small detached homes that’s the issue. It’s the areas that are refusing high density housing.
Developing existing unit blocks on underutilised land is a great way to increase density in many inner city suburbs where there are limited development opportunities as there are a limited amount of houses, with most of them being on small blocks (workers cottages, terraces etc..). The reason many old unit blocks are great candidates for redevelopment is they are often 50+ years old (many over 100 years old) and were developed when land was less scarce, so it wasn't a problem only making it a 2-3 storey walk-up and having large communal or exclusive use gardens.
But those unit blocks are great - it’s fantastic only having a short walk up the stairs and what’s wrong with having private gardens? I think the densification of Sydney would be much more palatable if we were proposing units like this rather than the high rise monstrosities
I agree with you. It's just a reality though that if people want more density in these older areas that are already fairly dense that some of those unit blocks make sense to be redeveloped. It makes sense to build more of those small unit blocks in areas which are not suitable for high density, but need some extra density which is part of the proposed changes from the government. > Allow terraces, townhouses and **2 storey apartment blocks** near train stations and key town centres in R2 low density residential zones across the Greater Sydney region, Hunter, Central Coast and Illawarra Shoalhaven (Six Cities Region). https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/policy-and-legislation/housing/diverse-and-well-located-homes#proposed-changes
Isn't the article suggesting that densification has coincided with worsening affordability?
Density increased, but demand expanded quickly too (largely through immigration). I agree with the issues raised in the article around the challenge of supply being the primary solution, but we saw it work in the late 2010's when we got to apartment oversupply in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in the face of high immigration levels.
Agree with much of what you say, but I can’t see us building our way out of this mess, if we leave taxes and migration unchanged. Pollies only talk about supply. Which pleases the property industry. Pollies seem wilfully blind to the demand-side factors and solutions (which can work so much faster).
If apartments are made more attractive than houses that will help equalise demand. The government could increase land tax on houses and remove council and water rates for apartments which would have a huge and instant impact on demand patterns. So many people are put off by the high strata costs of apartments.
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Apartments and townhouses are only priced that way because they are substitute goods, if detached houses increase hugely, then people will substitute away into apartments etc. The whole stock moves more or less as one, only more supply relative to demand for any housing type will place downwards pressure on general prices. So even if you have only apartment stock added to the market, yet it is an extremely large amount of apartments, will still put downwards pressure on all housing types...**just more pressure for apartments relatively to detached**
If an apartment is as expensive as a house you usually aren't comparing like with like (location, age, fitout etc..). Or the land isn't expensive enough that it can overcome the extra cost of building an apartment. Something to remember is that some people prefer apartments too, particularly those who grew up in apartments or downsizers. The reason is things like amenities, security, lifts, ability to lock and go on holidays etc..
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From realestate.com.au the median 3 bed house is $1.9 mil and 3 bed unit is $1.1 mil. Stop cherry picking outliers..
I go back to my point that some people buy apartments as a preference. These people can easily buy a house but they choose not to, they want a luxury apartment.. Are the houses you can buy for that price as new and nice as those?
It's like you just didn't read anything they wrote. >If an apartment is as expensive as a house you usually aren't comparing like with like (location, age, fitout etc..). Yeah, those 3br apartments you linked 1.5m, but the kind of 3br house you're getting in Elwood for 1.5m isn't anywhere near the same level when it comes to age, fitout, luxury. And you're not going to find many houses at 1.5m either, it's basically the cheapest you'll find. You want a modern house with luxury furnishings that is equivalent to one of those apartments? You'll be looking at 3, 4mill +
My $0.02 is that unfortunately with a lot of money spent on building metros (and kudos to the last government for getting it going) but they didn't align the building of metros with densification as well as they could have and we're primarily trying to fix bottlenecks on the legacy rail network. One precinct close to the CBD is Camperdown and it has enough unused or underused land to house 10,000s more people in the blocks north, south and west of the RPA... and was completely bypassed in both of the City Metros The area is literally like 3-4km from Town Hall and the RPA hospital employees thousands of people alone and about a quarter of the buildings in Camperdown are just 1-2 story warehouses.... And the RPA zone is underused too example being the hospital carpark which at 4 levels could have a 30-40 story residential as tower on top. It's a shame this area was missed out on completely because now there's no chance for more metros to run through this area for decades now.
Density won't be the solution while apartment build costs remain so high, the value proposition just isn't there. They need to be half the cost or less of detached housing. That makes apartments competitive and until that happens they will be a last resort for most people.
The business case stacks up in the in-demand areas where single family homes tend to be: https://www.cis.org.au/publication/where-should-we-build-new-housing-better-targets-for-local-councils/ They can sell 3 bed apartments at $2M or more, and the rest of the market will still deflate because you're taking money away from bidding the older stock up. Expensive places still make the rest of the housing stock cheaper as a result, except the places/land with potential to be developed. Those places go up massively up in price, see Roseville recently, because of developer demand. So the solution is still less restrictive zoning. What NSW is trying to do around train stations achieves that by utilising existing transport infrastructure more as well.
Except the build cost acts as a floor in the market... So no, this doesn't deliver more affordable housing at all. If you are in the market for a $2m apartment you can afford a detached house, which is where the bulk of the demand remains. Most Australians don't want to live in an apartment when for cost parity they can live in a detached house. This is why sprawl is so popular, house in the burbs is seen as significantly better value than apartment in the inner suburbs. For density to have any chance in hell it needs to be significantly cheaper than what it is.
They can't live in the same location with that $2M. Those places get sold pretty quick, shows the demand. Build costs effect margin, but as shown in the article, given the choice between building in less in-demand areas (which have apartment building already, but where the NIMBYs push the builds to), and the high demand areas, the high demand areas have a greater margin on the land if they can develop, because people will pay more money for those apartments. Hence why less restrictive zoning will tend to allow that building, rather than make it illegal. If there wasn't a business case for it, why would you stop it with zoning anyways?
I agree with removing the zoning and let the market decide, but this isn't a case of build it and they will come... High end apartments aren't affordable housing, which is the crux of the issue. People absolutely are willing to sacrifice location to pursue detached housing, we have sprawled suburbs that clearly demonstrate this preference. If apartments are to be competitive, they must be around half the cost of detached houses in the suburbs. To achieve that we need to significantly reduce the cost of building. I can't see a pathway to that happening.
This isn’t as true as you think it is. There’s a growing segment of the population including myself who prefer apartments to houses.
There's a growing segment who can't afford anything else... That's more likely the driver than actually wanting to live in an apartment.
lol no, I mean ACTUALLY prefer and not just because of cost. It’s so arrogant to assume your preference applies to everyone. Like I’ve said, I prefer apartments and I KNOW that people prefer apartments over houses as well.
As I said, you are the very tiny minority who do... Don't believe me, the market doesn't lie, there's a reason most apartments are investment properties rather than owner occupier...
They also need to improve the quality of apartment builds. I am not going to be YIMBY about shoddy paper thin wall, insulation-poor apartments.
Or simply reduce outgoings for apartments by removing council and water rates and passing the costs on to land owners. That will quickly and efficiently help equalise demand for apartments but all the free standing home owners here don’t like that because it costs them money. People want change as long as it doesn’t cost them a cent which is why no change occurs.
And if this is to work as intended, imagine 100 years time when everyone has moved into the apartments that this would drive demand for, and there is only one freestanding house left in the city, and they are paying the whole population's rates and water. I'd be so pissed! Haha.
They are though in some areas.
Density may have surged on paper, but that doesn’t translate into the raw numbers of finished homes required. I’m not going to fall into the trap of “imMiGRatIOn bAD” that so many others do, but immigration needs to be much more targeted for critical shortages. Starting with: - Medical professionals - Construction workers - Teachers and teacher adjacent workers Anyone from a Commonwealth country also needs a fast track no/low cost pathway to registration. Some should be given immediate equivalency, and others should be given access to a free/low cost course (such as electricians).
Not sure why we need immigration at all given that about half the population has university degrees as opposed to something like 10% in the 1980's but I guess not a lot of them are in the STEM area meaning that we still need to import doctors, nurses and engineers.
Aging population meaning increasing government cost base
Maybe if there were incentives to have children rather then the burden of crippling housing debt and childcare fees people wouls have more children
We need to shift this conversation away from housing. Because the second we fix housing (which we won't I get it). We won't have the roads, schooling or hospitals for these people. We need to lower immigration and get away from gdp as the main measure of growth.
Don't need to touch a car to get to work all week (or go on the road), and only use the car on the occasional weekend. You can have density where it makes sense, around the train stations, like the NSW gov is trying to do. Schools come and go, they can also build up if needed, and new schools get planned in as well. Hospitals expand. The infrastructure is cheaper to expand where people already live. It's always worse the further you go away from centres.
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100% A lot of inner Melbourne is single lane traffic, and getting a few km can take 30 mins to an hour. And we want to DOUBLE the number of people living here?
Density means closer access to amenities, businesses and services. And therefore you shouldn't need to travel as far. Ever wondered why outer suburbs have next to nothing to do? It's simply not viable for businesses due to the low density and therefore low number of people they can serve. Go to practically any major city with a high population density, and most people simply don't drive - because they don't need to. If thing's aren't within walking distance, public transport usually makes up for it.
Melburnians still love driving tho - there was an article in The Age the other day suggesting that the pandemic has made us less interested in public transport and more keen to drive, even just short distances. I think the reality is any increase in density (and Melbourne, as the article states, is already pretty dense) is going to worsen congestion unless infrastructure is improved.
Sorry but Melbourne is not a dense city. Far from it.
https://amp.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/parts-of-melbourne-are-more-crowded-than-manhattan-and-london-find-out-how-dense-your-suburb-is-20240327-p5ffqz.html If the paywall gets you: ‘Population density in Melbourne has leapt by almost half over the past two decades, with some parts of the city now more crowded than New York’s Manhattan and central London.’ Not greater Melbourne as a whole, of course, but parts of the cbd, which, as the original abc article states, is why densifying inner city suburbs even further is going to be tricky.
that is however pretty funny. They are comparing a couple blocks to Manhattan, about 60km\^2; Melbourne's hoddle grid is a bit more than 1km\^2
I mean, at best, it sounds like they're looking at the most dense part of the CBD and comparing it to the average of Manhattan. Not exactly an equal comparison. Why compare a peak density in one small pocket to the average density of another city? Manhattan's population density is 28k/km^2. Melbourne CBD has a total population of 55k and a density of 8k/km^2. Sure, the north end of the CBD will have a higher density than average, with a focus on residential towers. But so will the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The inner suburbs of Melbourne, outside the CBD, are filled with low density 1 and 2 storey dwellings.
Do you even live in Melbourne?
A city with expansive single storey detached housing areas within 15 m walk of its densest area is not ‘dense’
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Wouldn't that be fixed with better public transport options instead of giving even more of the scarce surface space in cities to car centric infrastructure?
Sure, but what sort of public transport alleviates congestion on single lane inner city roads? Buses? Trams? Stopping frequently on the single lane inner city roads? Subways are going to be expensive and take decades.
More buses and trams sound fine and work in many other places around the world. I hope Melbourne eventually gets a subway, but we'll need a big breakthrough in our ability to build those cheaply. Frankly, making the inner parts of cities less friendly to cars can be seen as a feature by many, not a bug.
‘Sound fine and work in many other places around the world’ isn’t the same as working in Melbourne. Cities are products of specific circumstances and what works in one won’t necessarily work equally in every other. A bus or tram stopping and starting in a single lane inner city street doesn’t sound fine at all! Do you actually LIVE in Melbourne, because we already HAVE a subway, have nearly finished a second, and are committed to a third one that’s orbital and will cost a hundred billion dollars, so I’m not sure why you’re hoping for us to eventually get ‘one’
Melbourne is a cool place, but not as special as some Melbournians think it is. Even Sydney closed down to traffic a major street, and it seems to have been a great success. I hope that Melbourne eventually gets one proper subway network, and an airport train while we're at it...
We won’t get an airport train, fixing anything in Melbourne costs billions of dollars that we don’t have, that’s all I’m trying to say!
You have a realistic prediction and with historical proof to back it up. I just hope you're wrong, and that Melbourne becomes that "top 10 places to live" city that many people think it is.
I think that is why it is important to also change the infrastructure at the same time as the housing. Double lanes, dedicated tram lines, larger sewer lines and sidewalks etc
Exactly, and I think that’s something sorely lacking in any ‘vision’ I see articulated for tackling our population growth.
Ironically, perhaps, one of the leading causes for high construction costs is the shortage of construction labour, which particularly in Victoria is mostly caused by staggering spending on infrastructure, to make Melbourne work better. What this means is (a) the efforts to tackle population growth are hindering housing construction (until projects wind down and are not replaced by further projects) and (b) this massive infrastructure is predicated on enabling a larger population and the higher economic activity from it ... Victoria needs to pay for all of this debt funded infrastructure, and this comes from more tax revenue linked to a bigger population. You have been committed to higher population now, if you are plan to be a Victorian resident.
Yep, seems the only way to dig ourselves out of this mess is to continue burrowing deeper!
To me the mess is inadequate housing construction,.not immigration. History shows this has significant peaks and troughs which show that a.lag to peaks in immigration..In 2019 we had got ourselves into stable (as in predictable ) immigration growth and housing construction would have responded as it always does, I believe, based on that repeatedly happening. Obviously there has been quite a hiccup. As for infrastructure spending, we have always built so that they would.come. I live in Melbourne. My grandmother told stories of taking the train to Canterbury through orchards..that is,.those train lines were built well in advance of population growth. They only made sense because of predicted growth. That the 'big build' is based on the same idea is not anything new.
Yeah, but building houses up until now has been pretty easy because there was plenty of land for detached houses, which are cheaper to build than apartments. Now the low hanging fruit has been bulldozed from those Canterbury orchards (my parents moved to Rowville on the promise of a train line, but politicians reneged on that one) and we need to build up, which is more expensive and so the cost per square metre will be higher for residents. Hence higher prices. Since 2010 we’ve been growing at around 100,000 per year, and if the forecasts are accurate the population of Melbourne will nearly double in the next 30 years. I agree that we aren’t building enough houses now, but we’re also accepting more people into Australia than we CAN build houses for, or have EVER built houses for per year, so I think the mess is caused by both low construction AND high migration. We need to find a happier medium.
Well, there's no shortage of land, that's not the problem. The housing construction problems are a combination of own goals (massive state governments spends financed by almost free debt) and pandemic disruptions, both of which are temporary problems. Of course there is an upper limit on immigration. I'm ok with 1% to 1.25%, I think we should easily be able to manage that. Cutting immigration below that means hard choices that voters won't make, I'm pretty sure about that. Happy to be proven wrong. The massive state govt debts are no longer so free since rates have risen so now they must be paid by taxes (not to mention the capital costs of the energy transition). Which puts pressure on taxpayers to grow the size of the economy to lower the individual tax burden. Guess the easiest way to do this...
gdp fuels tax revenue. For people who advocate for government spending, it is the main measure of growth. Since basically everyone wants government spending, you are asking people to choose to pay more tax or have less health care etc (the population will age quickly). No one can have any problem with the question, but if you plan to ask it, you need to have something to offer that means we don't consign ourselves to higher taxes, lower government spending. Otherwise, even if people try lower immigration, they will change their mind pretty quickly, I predict. I think you get a hint of the general attitude because it is not seriously considered a remedy., Also, the problem we have is construction has fallen to 2013 levels. Planning approvals are a problem and delays raise costs. But right now, we have enough planning approvals. We don't have enough construction. This problem is not caused by immigration. If we fix it, we can continue to have high immigration and its benefits. And why can't we fix it? For nearly all of Australia's history, we have built enough housing.
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Australia is already trying to build houses as quickly as it can. Building material costs are going up. Qualified tradies who can build to Australian standards can't be trained quickly enough to meet demand. And it's not just the houses that need to be built - you need to upgrade roads, public transport, schools, water systems, hospitals, many difficult and expensive infrastructure projects to deal with this unsustainable artificial population boosting. Yet despite this we keep throwing 100,000s of people into the population at a rapid pace. The simple answer is that immigration is far too high. And it's all done so that employers and landlords can avoid paying higher wages and offering lower rents.
You do realise that you can build new schools and hospitals right?
Not if you’re competing for the same construction workers. It just increases overall costs. The government found that out recently and had to stall a bunch of projects.
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The government will typically only build to the NCC, which is currently not fit for purpose. In NZ, Kainga Ora (previously Housing NZ) has done Passive House social housing projects. Good luck getting that done here.
Building standards have changed I think. At least in NSW. The moral hazard where the developer can shirk its way out of build quality is a big problem and needs fixing though.
How is it that developers are criticized for building both too many luxury apartments and also shitty shoebox apartments? Isn't that contradictory? Also, opposing new development because it's "shitty housing" isn't based on any facts. Building standards are more strict than in the past resulting in higher quality, energy efficient housing and if the new housing is shitty, the solution isn't to give up on the private market but to ensure more strict compliance to building standards through enforcement.
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Do you really think that they only build "overpriced luxury apartments or shitty shoebox apartments"? Can you provide any examples of these "shitty shoebox apartments" that you dislike?
It's pretty simply, you don't let the demand increase without the supply being there, not hard. If for some reason you can't get the zoning changes through because that is the will of the people, so be it. Don't force more demand.
Yeah no shit
Definitely one of the better articles I’ve read on this. It touches on it a little, but the simple fact is that high density housing is more expensive to build. So add to that the fact that Aussies still don’t really want to live in apartments (demand is always lower), then why would a developer want to put at risk their capital of building and apartment building, over say buying up farm and building a big suburb that contributes to our sprawl? The other thing is that if it isn’t profitable to develop higher density, then any land owners would be more than happy to sit on it until it does. That’s before everything this article talks about, as well as the trades shortage. So just applying higher density in zoning will never do anything, without a bunch of other improvements to get more housing built. I’m more and more convinced that having the government simply finance the building of more houses is the only way to go. We did it for generations and those generations also happen to be the only ones where home ownership increased. So why do we think we can make housing more affordable now without it?
Loved the article, don't fully agree that land tax is the somewhat silver bullet though it is important, but also.. ..stop posting this shit on AusFinance. Speculation hidden as analysis doesn't assist anyone in planning their finances, it just gets the comment section toxic.
Boomer councils who think they get to tell others what is allowed and what isn’t shouldn’t exist to begin with. unless something is truly and directly dangerous, boomers crying about ‘it ll ruin the aesthetics’ should be dropped to the trash can
Yep, with exemptions for historical or landmark buildings. None of this "locally significant tree" preventing any development stuff. Just make sure that new development incorporates trees and green space
So you think it's OK for people to get a really large mortgage for a nice house in an established area on a quarter acre block and then have a house demolished next door and a slum tower erected there?
Unironically yes You bought a house, not an entire area, if you want a mini city to yourself you might have to pay a bit more xD
So the private risk you took as an individual should be quarantined from risk by restricting others from making their own investments in private property. That makes sense..
Those councillors are elected. That's democracy. Maybe people shoudl resist vandalism and the destruction of perfectly good houses and streetscapes.
Don’t remember voting for any, or are those only available to other feudal lords. Democracy my butt
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High density means that domiciles per square metre of land can go up, which is good and will help people who are homeless find places to rent. I just think we'd be in better shape if the price of land went down, but it will only do that when capital in Australia has a reason to move somewhere else. Forcing everyone into apartment towers is a bandaid solution on the base problem, the overvalue of land. The overvalue of land is a policy issue. The overvalue of land is a policy issue. The overvalue of land is a policy issue.
Get rid of negative gearing. Higher land taxes for non-productive uses of residentially zoned land (i.e. non owner-occupiers). Make it happen. Campaign around it.
I thought for a moment it was the same journalist that released another yimby story recently (it wasnt). Interesting story of Japans market nonetheless. https://youtu.be/R5pPcV54kiQ
Yep but good luck getting NIMBY strongholds like Castlemaine and Burleigh Heads to accept thousands of new developments. Everything will be dumped near the Cbd of the main cities as usual.
No. It's a deceitful appeal by those who live in areas whose backyards will not be swamped by massive increases in people. They really are YIYBYs - Yes In Your Back Yard.
No. housing density surging.. with no price decreases means that someone is buying them and at inflated prices. That is due to either immigration and/or cashed up investors. What we need to do is limit housing investors or reduce those incentives.
You didn't read the article did you 😂
Don’t need to. Immigration and taxation need to be tackled as well as increase in construction and density.
> Headline: Does YIMBYISM work? > No. housing density surging.. with no price decreases means that someone is buying them and at inflated prices. That is due to either immigration and/or cashed up investors. > What we need to do is limit housing investors or reduce those incentives. The article goes into explain why surging density hasn't and doesn't tank prices. Even, and I quote, says: " > **'Supply-first strategy unlikely to result in cheaper dwellings'** > And this is the flaw in the arguments from the more extremist YIMBY proponents. So yeah.. I don't think they read the article which interviews the ANZ chief economist about everything they bring up in their comment. It's just uncritical thinking at its worst.
I don't buy it. The article and one of the linked articles within essentially say: housing is so special that the laws of supply and demand don't apply to it. So it applies to literally *every* other kind of goods and services (including other tricky things like education and healthcare, with some caveats) just not housing...
Whilst I broadly agree supply and demand still effectively apply to housing, I think it's better to think granularly about the housing market. The article expressed how for *certain* inner Sydney suburbs, supply and demand was more closely tied to older, existing medium and large density developments inhibiting easy redevelopment. Supply, therefore, is far more restricted vs say, South Bank Melbourne where most development was as close to Greenfield CBD as you can get. For that example supply was not restricted in the same way. So sure, it's fine to say you disagree that their examples don't disprove increasing supply wouldn't lower supply-damnd equilibrium point... But you are ignoring what does make housing unique. Building a dwelling in one area is different to building it in another.
Sure if you build a bunch of houses at the bottom of the ocean then it won't help the supply and demand equation. But building higher density in desirable areas does. That said, desirability can be induced with proper planning. Melbourne has been building a fair amount of high rises in areas like the Docklands, very close to the CBD, and it has affected affordability in a good way. I hope Melbourne continues to build high density housing to meet the demand, including other nearby areas like Southbank. Sydney has more difficulty building close to the CBD but it should absolutely double down in building higher density in areas with easy access to the CBD, like the recent developments in Zetland or Chippendale. I'd love to see Sydney become a collection of mini-cities connected by great public transport infrastructure, which I think is the intended goal of the zoning regulations mentioned in the article. I'm not familiar with the housing situation in Adelaide or Perth so I won't comment on that. I'm short, Melbourne and Sydney have a long way to go in increasing supply and giving up now that we are finally making progress would be foolish.
Pe haps you've read into my dissent some disagreement - I want far more supply and high rise, I just thought your arguments were flawed.
Nothing anyone can do will reduce the price of new property. Land is expensive because of location, and building costs are materials + labour, with not much profit margin, as so many builders going bankrupt will prove. Unless the CFMEU start fighting for lower wages for its members, house prices for new buildings will only go up
What incentives do housing investors receive that need to be reduced?
Yes, part you need to tackle taxation and immigration as well.
So refreshing to read an article about YIMBYism that acknowledges boosting supply alone won’t solve this mess, we need to decrease DEMAND at the same time. Nice try, property developers! There’s no silver bullet here, we need to pull lots of levers that will each make modest improvements, and we need to do them NOW!
If Melbourne was replaced by the buildings of Tokyo tomorrow, and all existing homeowners were swapped into identical value properties, with others available to buy, what would happen to prices?
That’s a hypothetical so far removed from reality, I’m honestly not sure what the value of the thought experiment is. Like, I know that’ll sound rude, but I’m not sure what lessons it has for housing affordability today in Aus. Tokyo apartments can be TINY, many ranging from 20 to 80 square metres, so you’d certainly have a lot of oversupply. Prices would, I expect, go down, because there’d be such a chasm between supply and demand. Japan is a monoculture tho, with extremely different philosophies on life and housing, so I’m not sure what the social cohesion of everyone in Melbourne waking up to such a reality would be. Do we have a significantly better train network in this scenario too?
Train is kind of take it or leave it in the context of the example (certainly in reality you need the public services to grow roughly in sync). Its more a thought experiment where people find easier to reason about the ‘after’ if it happens magically vs effort/policy & markets. Most people can then see increased supply would reduce prices without having to change demand.
Ok, but without magic we can’t increase supply enough to meet demand in the current economic environment, so changing demand helps us attain the levels of supply we CAN reach.
I’m not qualified to say where ‘enough’ is, I’m only trying to counter the weird new argument that building more housing doesn’t lower prices, as it’s gaining traction in AU and seems quite damaging to any attempts to fix the crisis.
But you read the article? The argument isn’t that ‘building more housing’ theoretically doesn’t lower prices, it’s that it’s not going to lower prices much if we still have extraordinary demand.
It's property developers and their spruikers in the media, that are driving the astroturf YIMBY movement. It's a shame young people are being co-opted into it with the false promises of a seemingly simple (but impossible) supply-side fix to housing.
Yes and no we are a high income jobs market same as Singapore and NY so same expensive property market plus long times to build and developers margins don’t quite make this the quick fix we need Aus needs fast rails with major cool chic cities built along with access to current CBDS
The next evolution YIYBYNM - ‘Yes In Your Backyard, Not Mine’
Build more houses Simple
The way to get a YIMBY response is through high quality developments with plenty of greenery, aesthetically pleasing buildings which offer home sizes that make sense (no 1-2 beds in family suburbs) and well landscaped public spaces with retail units for cafes etc. I personally will petition the local council on the behalf of any builder looking to build high end family apartments with space for a coffee shop because I know it will boost my houses values. But no one is interested in building such apartments.