As of the latest building approvals data from the ABS, in the last 12 months, 111,500 detached houses were approved for construction.
This result comes with both good news and bad news.
The good news is that the figure for detached house approvals is up by 6,800 homes from the lows seen in December 2023.
The bad news is that this is down dramatically from the peak of 153,000 recorded during the height of the pandemic in August 2021.
The worst news is that the current level of detached house approvals is tracking at the same level as September 1972, over 53 years ago.
At this time, Australia’s population was around 14 million.
Today, the population of Australia is 27.8 million people, heading for more than double the 14 million of 1972 by the end of this year if current trends continue.
While the overwhelming majority of Australians want detached houses when price is not factored in as a consideration, when it is included in the calculus, over 60% of first-home buyers want to own freestanding houses.
In the housing narrative, migrants are often mentioned as the ones who will live in the apartments, as is common in some of the nations from which Australia draws its intake.
However, thanks to data from Statistics Canada, we have some hard data on this question.
While Canada is naturally not Australia, the various sources of its migrant intake are within the same ballpark as Australia’s.
In terms of temporary visa holders, 79.2% do indeed live in apartments.
When the focus is shifted to migrants more broadly, that proportion falls to just 41.7% and this is no doubt skewed by the new arrivals who live in apartments, whether that is their preference or not, during their early years in Canada establishing their household.
Australia actually does a very good job in building homes in per capita terms, outbuilding its peers across the Anglosphere, despite the fact that completions are depressed compared with historic domestic norms.
However, it is also true that the nation is not building enough of the homes that existing Australians and new migrants both aspire to: freestanding homes.
While this is an area of focus for think tanks, construction industry lobby groups, and academics, it is a factor that is too often overlooked by policymakers.
Ultimately, government policy should exist to pursue the kind of nation and the kind of housing in Australia that the public aspires to, not to pursue a policymaker agenda that runs contrary to the goals and priorities of the Australian people.
