30 July 2008
There is no end in sight to NSWs housing affordability crisis, with Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released today showing the lowest number of new home approvals in recorded history, according to the Urban Taskforce.
As a community we have to make a decision do we want more housing or do we want even higher rents?
The NSW Government, local councils and the wider community must now join together in a concerted push to revive housing development.
This means opening up land for new houses in suburban areas without punitive levies, as well as giving the green light to more widespread compact living in pedestrian friendly inner city areas.
We need action now; otherwise rents will continue to skyrocket.
Todays figures show that only 30,047 new homes were approved in NSW in the last financial year, compared to 43,480 in Queensland and 42,319 in Victoria.
These approval figures show that there wont be any significant chunks of new housing coming on-line in NSW in the near future.
While the number of new home approvals in Queensland shot up by 5 per cent, Victoria 13 per cent, in NSW approvals fell by 3 per cent the sixth annual consecutive fall.
In fact, the number of new homes approvals in NSW has fallen by 39 per cent since 2002.
The latest number is the lowest annual figure for NSW since the Australian Bureau of Statistics began keeping records on the subject in 1965.
Only 15,713 houses were approved in 2007/08, this is an astonishingly low figure that weve never seen before.
Were used to 28,000 houses being approved every year in NSW.
Only 14,334 new apartments and other attached houses were approved in NSW last financial year.
Thats down from a more conventional figure of 20,000 new apartment and town house approvals a year.
A descent to these paltry figures shows that theres no relief from the current rental crisis in sight.
The shortage of new homes has forced rents up with an increase of 26 per cent across Sydney in the last three years.
The total number of homes approved across Australia in 2007-08 was 158,938, an increase of 3.6 per cent from the previous year. Nationally, the number of house approvals rose 2.8 per cent from the previous year while other dwellings rose 5.4 per cent.
A table showing current and historic figures for new home approvals in NSW is attached. The Urban Taskforce is a property development industry group, representing Australias most prominent property developers and equity financiers.
