Another explanation. Copy & pastes from: https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2023/07/australias-housing-...

Australia has had one of the highest rates of housing construction in the developed world

We also have one of the highest numbers of construction workers per capita in the OECD

Australia also ramped-up housing construction to record levels last decade

However, this surge in construction was swamped by the unprecedented jump in net overseas migration from 2005, which is projected to run even higher over the next five years

So, it's simple demand and supply. Demand has been driven by a "Big Australia" policy driven by the federal government that started with Howard in 1996 and has been enthusiastically continued by every government from both sides of the isle for the next 25 years. Demand outstripped supply, despite the fact we've turned up the dials on supply about as far as they can be turned. Rising prices should not be a surprise.

In view of the fact we are world leaders in building housing the other explanations we are given like "land availability" or "state government bureaucracy" or lack of public housing are IMO just furphies. Government subsidies for house builds only make sense if we have spare capacity. But we've already maxed out our building capacity, so the builders pocket the money. As a consequence these federal attempts to subsidise their way of the problem doesn't get more houses built - they just pour fuel on the housing price fire.

Perversely, it's been a factor in bankruptcies in the building sector. With so much demand builders took on more work than they could complete in a reasonable time frame. Yes, it was pure greed, but it was also only possible because demand is so high. And usually locking in sales like that would be harmless and even prudent (apart from pissing off the customer because it took 18 months rather than 7 to deliver the built house). But that work was for a fixed cost and we got hit with COVID inflation so the self inflicted long leads times lead to builders making a loss - and going under.

But it's not just the building sector. When your growing your population at about 2% per annum [0] all sorts of things start going wrong. You can't build hospitals fast enough, and we get ramping [1]. Roads clog faster than you can build them. [2] Public schools can't be built fast enough, and you can't find teachers. [3]

The icing on the cake is it's the State's that cope the blame for all of this because they are the ones responsible for delivering roads, hospital, schools and releasing housing land, and they aren't delivering fast enough. But the root cause isn't them - it's federal population policy. And so far, feds have got with their the "Big Australia" policy scot-free, with none of the blame for the down sides attributed to them.

I'm not against population growth, but it has to be done at a reasonable pace and clearly the current pace is not reasonable.

[0] https://blog.id.com.au/2023/population/population-trends/aus...

[1] https://theconversation.com/ambulance-ramping-is-a-signal-th...

[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-20/queensland-traffic-co...

[3] https://www.9news.com.au/national/teacher-shortage-mental-he...