[+] ‘Let’s Not Waste a Good Crisis’, Industry Urged

For a time, the residential market was booming—approvals, commencements and prices were on the up and the sun shone brightly on the industry. Those days are gone but not forgotten, but history shows they will return, just as they always do. And, according to four industry experts, in every crisis there is an opportunity, as they outlined at The Urban Developer’s flagship conference Urbanity on the Gold Coast last week. Samuel Property managing director Illan Samuel says it is time to just get going, pull the levers and let everyone get to work. “How did we get here? We’ve got really low approvals and they’re dropping, we’ve got targets that are unsustainable in every city,” Samuel says. “We really have the perfect storm, we have all these elevated costs on every facet that are really hurting the market that we are trying to activate to provide that supply. “We’ve got a constipated planning system where things can’t get out, or what is getting out isn’t meeting the market. “And if we can get approvals, but they’re not feasible, they’re not going to get built. Samuel says he agrees houses are needed but “it needs to be feasible, it’s not a passion project for me—I need to be able to go to the bank and get money. “It’s a housing crisis and let’s not waste a good crisis, but also not assume it will fix itself by hoping or wishing.” The Melbourne-based Samuel says incentivising transactions could help get the market moving and the money flowing. Fresh Economic Thinking chief economist Cameron Murray says it needs to be acknowledged that the markets are doing today what they always do, so maybe a different approach altogether is required. ▲ Housing in the NSW capital has been an issue for almost its entire white history. “It was Charles Darwin in 1836 ... before he noticed any of the Australian wildlife, he wrote in his diary that people complain about housing in Sydney,” Murray told the panel. “The population of the city was 20,000. “Every time there is a property cycle we end up in the same situation. Where did all the houses go? We all want houses all of a sudden. “We pushed up interest rates from zero per cent to 4.5 per cent because we wanted people to stop building houses because it was overheating the economy. “It worked.” The economist says we won’t solve homelessness by making everybody’s house worth less. “If incomes are rising quickly and unevenly some people will be left behind,” Murray says. “We don’t want to make the $10 trillion in Australian housing worth $7 trillion, what we need to do is think outside the market of how to support those people during these periods of rapid change. “It’s just a small fraction—30 per cent of renters. “Our government says housing is a huge cost but foreign investors are saying housing investment in Australia [is the] best investment ever. “The idea that we’re not building a lot or are incapable of doing it is wrong. “It’s really having an economic structure, a way for people to access housing that is not by price, for most people that’s good but we need some sort of alternative.” ▲ Cameron Murray, Penny Kalata, Mike Myers and Ilan Samuel during The Great Housing Debate moderated by Natalie Rayment from Wolter Consulting at Urbanity. Housing All Australians Queensland committee chair Michael Myers says several things can be done in planning and investment. “First, we should have mandatory social infrastructure workforce housing plan,” Myers says. “Everytime we build a hospital we should think about the workforce, everytime we build a school. “Secondly, we need to resolve the impasse of build-to-rent. “If we had an institutional rental market equivalent to the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development], we would have 400,000 institutionally owned long-term rental properties, a percentage affordable. Myers adds that boosting density and approvals along with security for investors of affordable housing could fix the housing scarcity. Meanwhile, Property Industry Foundation NSW manager Penny Kaleta says there also needs to be housing for those who cannot compete in the housing market. “It’s shocking to think that 40 per cent of all homeless are youth [46,000 a night] and they are under the age of 24,” Kaleta says. “We’re not living up to the challenge and looking after the next generation of Australians.” However, Kaleta says, there are also a million vacant properties, so there are possible solutions out there already. In the end, in a market that cycles there’s plenty of room to grow. But if nothing changes, people will be left behind, again. You are currently experiencing The Urban Developer Plus (TUD+), our premium membership for property professionals. Click here to learn more.

[+] ‘Let’s Not Waste a Good Crisis’, Industry Urged

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