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This week: super for home deposits versus our boomer bonds idea, a couple of useful apps, and the news from 14 to 20 March, with my take on the stories that matter most to people building a home.
Super for deposits vs boomer bonds
In our latest blog post, we compare two ideas for tackling housing affordability:
- Letting people use their super for a home deposit. It could get people into the market sooner, but it risks reducing retirement savings and pushing prices up further, because it adds buying power without adding a single house.
- "Boomer bonds". Older Australians invest in bonds that fund affordable housing projects. The aim is to increase supply while giving investors a stable return, without touching anyone's retirement savings.
Which one wins? Read the post and see.
Anthony Painter
Update
Our C11 Enclosed Stage Checklist is out now. It covers roof, windows, cladding, brickwork and wet area waterproofing before the inside work starts. Get the C11 Enclosed Stage Checklist.
Software of the week: UpNote
Not sponsored, just software we use.
UpNote is a simple, affordable note-taking app that runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, with your notes synced across all of them. You can embed PDFs and images, and share notes with a link. It doesn't do collaborative editing, so it's for your own notes rather than a team workspace. If you want somewhere tidy for site notes, research and ideas without the bloat, it's worth a look.
Tool of the week: Blip
Not sponsored, just a tool we've used.
Blip sends files of any size directly from one device to another, without uploading to cloud storage first. Interrupted transfers pick up where they left off. It runs on macOS, iOS, iPadOS and Android, with Windows and Linux in development. Both you and the recipient need an account, and transfer speed depends on your connection. Handy for drone footage, big photo sets and drawing packages that email won't touch.
Blip created by two ex dropbox engineers. Making file sharing fast and secure as.
This week's theme: Australia's housing crisis, challenges and new hope?
(Yes, that was a Star Wars reference.)
The headlines this week paint a familiar picture:
- Affordability. Prices keep rising faster than wages.
- Builders going under. A steady stream of building companies have gone broke over the past year, worsening the supply shortage. Labour shortages, rising costs and regulation all play a part.
- Labour costs. In Sydney, high land prices and tradie rates have pushed housing costs to some of the highest in the world. One article this week reported bricklayers earning around $234,000 a year.
And some reasons for hope:
- Stamp duty relief for downsizers is being discussed, to free up larger homes for families.
- Regional markets are holding up and offering more affordable options than the capitals.
- Queensland has reinstated its Productivity Commission to look at housing costs.
Our view on this week's most important news
π―π―π―π― Sydneysiders paying almost half the total property value in taxes
The article reports that in Brisbane and Adelaide, government taxes, fees and charges on new homes have doubled in five years.
Governments have little incentive to bring prices down. Higher prices bring in more revenue through stamp duty, land tax and charges without anyone having to announce a tax rise. When higher prices keep bringing in more revenue, there's no incentive to stop.
Meanwhile consumers are told that spending is driving inflation, so interest rates must stay high, while quietly absorbing taxes and charges on new homes that have doubled in five years. It's a bit like agents on a percentage commission in a hot market: in a market this hot, agents aren't working any harder for that commission, but buyers are paying for it.
π―π― Townsville flood plain "black zone" land sold for housing
Flood-prone land isn't automatically unbuildable, but you shouldn't put a slab-on-ground house in these areas. That's asking for trouble. There's a good reason old Queenslanders were built up off the ground.
The same goes for renovators raising a Queenslander and building in underneath in a flood zone. The new ground floor will flood, because it was never meant to be there. Someone always pays for bad decisions eventually. The best we can do is learn from them.
π―π― Construction workers "flying blind" amid lengthy approval processes
Approval delays are real, but the conversation usually ignores one cause: the quality of the applications. A friend of mine is a building certifier, and they're swamped with poor applications. Many building companies have outsourced their drafting and admin offshore, or use admin staff without construction knowledge. Applications go in missing key information, the certifier has to send them back with requests for information, and the clock keeps ticking.
Before blaming approval authorities, look at what they're being sent. Builders aren't innocent bystanders in this.
π―π― 40-year mortgages don't make houses cheaper
Generational mortgages? I don't think so. More debt doesn't make houses cheaper; it just lets prices climb further. Fix supply and the rest will follow. I'd like to see a nation-building push on housing and housing manufacturing, run lean like a tech company, with the money going into building the workforce and clear career paths rather than layers of management.
π―π― Want to fix the housing crisis? Then listen to dads like Morgan
A heartbreaking read: two jobs, a young child and no certainty. I don't agree with the author's attempt to steer the conversation away from migration. If we're completing somewhere around 180,000 homes a year while population growth from migration runs well above that, there's a shortfall before you even look at rental stock. Supply and demand both matter, and we need to manage both, alongside a long-overdue increase in social housing.
Half a million homes short of target, and another report
Read the article | Property Council report
The Property Council's new report says, in short: we're not building enough homes, we need more transparency, and we should set up another committee. The ABS already tells us the first part every quarter. Honestly. This is why nothing gets done.
My suggestion: take a slice of the money spent on marketing, PR and industry lobbying, and put it into an innovation fund for housing startups and new construction methods. Keep doing the same things and you'll get the same poor results.
π―π―π― Overconsumption: a global challenge architects can address
Architects do fantastic work. The problem is how rarely they're involved in affordable housing. Project builders keep churning out the same designs because it suits their business model, and innovation stalls. How do we get architects' expertise into the affordable end of the market?
π―π―π― Golden Sedayu sets up its own construction company
Expect more developers to bring building in-house to control construction costs, as builders on bigger projects push for fees plus a profit share. But developing and building are very different businesses. Developers can attract talent with money; keeping it takes a strong culture and a good place to work. I wish them well.
π―π―π― Building an energy-efficient house delivers big savings
We've written about this a lot, including orientation, insulation, glazing, airtightness and building a 7-star home. So yes, we rant about this quite a bit.
Ray White's three scenarios for the housing market
This one picks a few topical cause-and-effect stories and presents them as the likely outcomes. There are plenty of other possibilities. We wrote about spotting this kind of reasoning in 10 common logical fallacies. Some alternative scenarios:
- A new national housing authority tasked with delivering social and affordable housing.
- State-based housing investment corporations to kickstart a manufactured housing industry in each state.
- Investment rules that encourage supply through government-secured, property-backed securities.
Other news worth a look
14-03-2025
- What's happening with the National Construction Code? We asked Neil Savery. The former ABCB head now questions whether incremental code changes will get us to net zero.
- Buying off the plan: tempting tax benefits but loaded with risk. Good point that for smaller developers, the builder and their subcontractors are the biggest factor.
- Is the reno boom going bust? I suspect the "renovator's delight" is becoming the "rectification delight", fixing poor-quality new builds.
- Housing affordability crisis: saving for a deposit forever
- Five years on from COVID-19: how the housing market has changed. A detailed summary of prices and affordability against economic events.
- Queensland Productivity Commission reinstated to tackle housing costs
- Strata law changes: Section 106 claims extended to six years (NSW)
15-03-2025
- Builder RobertsCo puts Victorian business into administration
- Passive House, the active choice to redefine living
- Australian housing supply falls further behind target
- Solution to the housing crisis is staring us in the face
16-03-2025
- Your builder went bust: now what? Worth reading the comments too.
- Sydney rents hit record highs as the Rental Commissioner comes under fire
17-03-2025
- The question Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese won't answer. On politicians' own property holdings. It's hard to fix a problem you don't personally feel.
- Grattan Institute Orange Book 2025: policy priorities
- Sydney man fined more than $470,000 for unlicensed and uninsured building work
18-03-2025
- Housing crisis failure: 96,000 homes short of Queensland target
- Academic throws cold water on the super-for-housing scheme
- Sam can't afford to live alone
19-03-2025
- Tradie calls out a dodgy detail on a new build costing homeowners thousands
- $234k a year: the tradie "to blame" for the housing crisis
- The Stats Guy: new housing is desperately needed but often not wanted
- GBCA guide to circular procurement in the built environment
20-03-2025
- Brace for a building shake-up: proposed changes to Victoria's building legislation. An interesting one to watch.
- The case for retrofit housing
- Griffith affordable housing builder allegedly $3 million in debt
- Home In Place targets the housing crisis with its "One in Ten" plan
That's all for this week
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PS: Quality management checklists
All our checklists are on the Checklists page, also linked in the navigation menu. You can preview each one before you buy, and C1 Before Buying Land is free.
