Development Correspondent · Sydney
Tom reports on planning systems, apartment supply and the construction sector across the eastern seaboard.
7 stories
Australia told Gen Z that renting was the price they had to pay for being locked out of homeownership. Now rents are surging, wages are falling behind and young Australians are being priced out of the last stable housing option they had left. Are we creating the country’s first generation without a secure place to live?
Builders are declining work that would have been taken without hesitation five years ago. Fixed-price contracts, insolvency risk and a thin subcontractor market are converting a planning problem into a delivery problem.
Submissions published this week describe assessment timeframes that have doubled since 2018, with referral authorities identified as the largest single source of delay.
The two-speed office market has widened again, with owners of secondary stock facing repositioning costs that increasingly exceed residual value.
The sector has moved from pilot to fixture, and is now large enough to influence advertised rents in the inner city.
Transport investment is moving to the growth corridors where population is already arriving, reversing a decade of inner-city concentration.
Construction capacity, not funding, is the binding constraint on the current social housing programme.