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$vuetify.icons.faPhone1300 650 620

Land shortages at core of housing crisis

Media release

Land shortages at core of housing crisis

Media release
“The volume of residential land transactions has fallen 37 per cent over the 12 months to March 2023. This will see the volume of new home commencements slow over the next year,” stated HIA Senior Economist Tom Devitt.

The HIA-CoreLogic Residential Land Report provides updated information on sales activity in 51 housing markets across Australia, including the six state capital cities.

“An acute shortage of available land saw the price increase by 23 per cent over the three years from March 2020 to March 2023. This compares to just a 5 per cent increase in the three years before that,” added Mr Devitt.

“This land shortage continues to drive up prices despite the sharpest increase in interest rates in over 30 years and will weigh on home building activity in the coming years. 

“As the market begins to normalise from the shocks in recent years, it is expected that both sales and prices will return to their historical trend. This depends on the government’s ability to adequately plan its land release pipeline, which in turn depends on the availability of data across all stages of land release.

“On average, it takes ten years to move land through the seven stages of land release.

“Decisions made today about land release can be expected to affect housing supply ten years from now.

“The time it takes to progress from a vacant block of land to a block that is shovel-ready with titles could be a major roadblock to the government’s plan to build a million homes over the next five years” concluded Mr Devitt.

CoreLogic Economist Kaytlin Ezzy said, “Although the rate tightening cycle has seen some capitals record mild declines in recent months, land prices overall have remained fairly resilient, thanks to the shortfall in available land supply. 

“While sales numbers have eased significantly from the peak volumes seen during the HomeBuilder scheme, it will take some time before we see a more notable recovery in supply levels. Until then, we can expect land prices will remain elevated, dwelling approvals will continue to track below average, and house commencements will continue easing,” concluded Ms Ezzy.

For more information please contact:

Thomas Devitt

HIA Senior Economist
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