this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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We have more houses per person, so it is not a fact. We do have a supply problem, because we're not utilising our existing housing stock.
We do have a supply problem, but it's wild you think it's okay for wealthy people to screw the rest of us over. The supply problem is because houses are sitting empty, and tax incentives are such that profiting off of housing makes it an asset class people are pouring money into.
We could just decide tomorrow we're going to keep housing prices nominally stable, make hoarding empty houses illegal (like, someone's "freedom" to profit doesn't trump the rest of our freedom of having somewhere affordable to live... we live in a society, not an anarcho-capitalist hellscape), and remove tax incentives that make housing such an attractive asset class.
We could be using these piles of money invested into unproductive assets (the house just sits there, the actual value from living there is far, far exceeded by the current price) and invest them in actual productive assets like companies and research.
Housing needs to be for people to live, not to profit.
We are building enough housing per person, that's a fact, and I've given you the data to prove it. Yes, even with how many people were bringing in (which I agree, we ought not just aimlessly do).
But it's plainly obvious that the reason housing is expensive is not because of the number of houses we have.
To be clear we have more housing per person than before, so the 7000 per week figure (also, is that net?), doesn't really prove your point at all.
Where are these empty houses? Not where people want to live, and they’re not for sale or rent so they’re irrelevant.
Are we building 7000 new homes per week? No. We are factually not building enough homes.
You are not owes someone else giving you their house to live in. If they choose to buy it and keep it empty that’s up to them, and they shouldn’t be forced to do otherwise. Thinking they should is just jealousy.
Clearly we must be, otherwise how would the number of houses per person be increasing...?
Something tells me the 7000 per week number isn't correct or otherwise misconstrued. Please link to the relevant study or ABS data page. (There may be some confusion between net migration, and number of ARRIVALS per week, which includes tourists and other temporary visa holders)
Sorry, but I think this take isn't sensible. We regulate a lot of our society. We don't let people do whatever they want, where we draw the line in different areas comes down to what we value as a society.
You seem to value ownership above all else. Never mind the extremely damaging externalities, in your point of view.
If you own a house, and you're not living in it, and you're not renting it out, especially if you own more than 2 (I think holiday houses aren't some sacred thing people NEED, but fine, have A holiday house), then sorry, yes, you should be forced to sell or rent it out. Thinking it's okay to just keep it empty as your personal choice, is anti-social behaviour, and we as a society can choose to disallow it like we do with many other anti-social behaviours.
It's not jealously, it's empathy for your fellow human beings who need somewhere affordable to live. We as a society do get to decide when someone's behaviour is unacceptable. Unless you're not a fan of democracy?
We balance freedoms for the individual with what's best for the collective. Both extremes of hyper-individualism (what you seem to think "FreedomAdvocacy" means) or no personal rights whatsoever are dumb. There's a debate to be had about where exactly we should fall for any given topic, but the extremes seem a terrible way to run society.
You need to get an adult to explain your houses per 1000 people graph to you lol
I hate to pull the insulting card, but you started it:
Bro.
What don't you understand about 420 dwellings per 1000 inhabitants being higher than 377 dwellings per 1000 inhabitants?
Did you fail year 6 maths?
What are you not understanding here? Where do you get off implying I can't read graphs when clearly you don't seem to understand the concept. (Or just refusing to acknowledge it?)
More likely, you're just too stubborn to admit that your pre-decided "reason" for the housing crisis is bullshit, and you're just spouting numbers without actually bothering to look up the source. You just feel it's those pesky foreigners.
I really hope it's not that you innumerate. Would be a scathing indictment of our education system
Do you think that if inflation drops from 3% to 2% that things got cheaper?
We’re still bringing in significantly more people than we’re building houses to support. Building 400 houses when you brought in 1000 isn’t enough lol.
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
No wonder they're able to lie to you. You haven't understood the graph.
No, this is not the same concept. Inflation is increase in prices over a set period. (Typically given per year). It's a rate of change. I'll try spell out for you what the graph I linked to means, but it's not showing rate of change per time. It's showing a ratio of current houses, to current population for each given year.
This is total housing per person at the given year. NOT the rate of change.
Let's take the reciprocal fractions, maybe you'll get it then...
In 1990 there were ~2.65 people dwelling (1000/377). In 2022 there we only ~2.38 people per dwelling (1000/420). At that date, not rate of change like you're imagining.
I'm really hoping you understand now, that per person there are MORE houses than there were 30 years ago, but this hasn't caused the price of housing to drop because this hasn't translated into more available houses (because of aforementioned hoarding) and because of commodification of housing.
After this I'm gonna give up, and be sad that people didn't pay attention in maths because they "weren't going to use it" ☹️