hobo-jo you fail to understand the undersupply issue. Its clear from reading your comments that you beleive there should be people living on the streets because by your logic if there is an undersupply then that means there should be no houses to house them.
However this is completely wrong way of thinking. The housing shortage issue is largely mathematical i.e. based on hisotrical trends of population growth and homes being built. In short population growth has gone up whereas new builds havent.
Now this doesnt mean people are living on the streets. Nor does it mean realestate.com.au should have no properties for sale because of the simplistic view that if there is a shortage that means anything available will be snapped up.
Housing shortage simply means people wanting a property cannot afford one and hence are changing their habbits.
This is clear to see as people are now;
* living longer at home with their parents.
* group accomodation (buying with friends etc)
* renting (just look at the vacancy rates anywhere in the country)
* living further and further away from work\city
* price growth.
To provide another example use food prices. World wide there is a growing shortage\strain on food supply. This doesnt mean our hospitals are slowly filling up with people starving to death but it does mean that our eating habbits are drasitcally changing especially lower socio economic areas.
At this point many people who are blind denyers of any housing shortage will say well thats life, thats market economics peoples expectations are too high.
Taking that position is just bad economics as we are painting ourselves into a corner. Were do we stop, a lot more people are waiting to move out at 30 before they can afford to buy (save deposit etc) its not too far a stretch to imagine we will soon be 40 before we move out. If we are happy with such changes in lifestyle then ummm I guess its ok but I feel most poeple wont be happy with such changes and would want the issue of "housing shortage" addressed.
Its like saying its fine if petrol prices doubled as people just have to learn to adjust and take the bus or if food prices sky rocket people just have to learn to eat macas for their read meats and deal with it..
A much better and more efficient approach would be to increase the stock of housing in this country, which will take pressure off prices and see them stabalise for years to come. This is basic economics of demand & supply and finding an efficient equilibrium price.
So by increasing (supply), prices will come down and demand being met will increase.
This will mean more people who want to buy a house can, i.e. a more efficient outcome for the economy as a whole.
It is NOT a conspiracy of the HIA, MBA or any other building group its simply common sense. So in answer to the main thrust of this thread, is there a a shortage of stock YES! but is it understood by most of the public or even somersoft forum members? No.
The thread was introduced with an 'on the whole' question, e.g. is the housing shortage a myth or fact?
I said as much in my reply that it will differ between areas:
"The balance may differ between regions (e.g. overbuilt one area, underbuilt another)"
I'm getting a little tired of inner Sydney suburbs being used in just about every example on here... not only has Belbo used them here to (try) prove there is a 'shortage', but this region comes up often in other threads such as rental increase threads. We get it, rentals are tight in inner Sydney. Newsflash, 90%+ of Australia's population doesn't live in inner Sydney suburbs.
