Industry Issues

Housing shortages and building targets

Housing affordability and supply is a central issue in every state and territory and critical to the federal government’s agenda.

The New National Housing Accord is commencing and is targeting building 240,000 new homes each year, however the past 12 months has only seen 163,500 new homes, and approvals for new dwellings are at their lowest in a decade.

Trade shortages, approval delays at all levels of government, sharp material cost increases and sets of regulations that can be seen to impede production are just some of the hurdles faced to reach the targets.

Strata buildings, including apartments and townhouses, will make up a large percentage of the builds that need to be completed to reach the 1.2 million homes target by 2029, and coupled with the building quality changes experienced by the housing and strata industry to date, will require a great deal of collaboration to execute.

State and Territory Strata Commissioners – a work in progress

Queensland has had an Office of the Body Corporate Commissioner for more than 25 years, so the concept is not new there.

An office to centralise strata education, enquiries, resources, tools and dependent on the jurisdiction, some level of dispute resolution makes sense for a strata space that has close to 20 per cent of people nationally living under some form of strata arrangement.

SCA recently penned a letter with a number of consumer advocates to increase funding for the NSW Strata and Property Services Commissioner, where it is encouraging that a position has been created, but so far has not received the resources that will enable it to be successful.

In both Victoria and the ACT, respective SCA bodies have taken official positions, that commissioners should be created in their jurisdictions, and will be campaigning incredibly hard on that position over the remainder of 2024.

Creating specialised strata offices and resources within state and territory governments around the country is critical to improving the recurring issues that face the sector and community, and SCA is taking that fight forward.