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@jack_toohey on why the housing crisis is not caused by migration [ALL IMAGES IN POST BODY]
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this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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Ok so if the number of dwellings has increased at the same rate as the population has grown, why is it so hard to find somewhere to rent?
I'm not saying the numbers are wrong, I just don't understand why there's a shortage.
That doesn't create a shortage of rentals though.
What do you think "property" is in this context?
They are buying homes and not renting them out. Holding them as an investment and/or making money off them on Airbnb.
Why would you buy a home and not rent it out?
AirBnB isn't helping but it's well established that it's not a significant driver of the problem.
If its just a speculative asset to be traded back and forth you dont want the extra hassle of managing renters.
Houses aren't a speculative asset like shares or gold. They take time and effort to sell, and it's costly.
Point is, you wouldn't intend to sell in less than several years. Rent might be $50k a year. No investor is leaving that on the table.
I had a quick search, this isn't something I've properly looked into, but empty homes can be valuable:
Jack Portman - "What is the value in an empty home? A perspective from Action on Empty Homes and the Global Empty Homes Network" https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13604813.2024.2390754#d1e98
This is why there have to be significant taxes on vacant rentals (including short term rentals like AirBNB).
It has to be made more expensive to keep a property vacant than to rent it out and maintain it, without increasing rent.
Rent assistance is just corporate welfare that drives up rent.
I don't think that says what you think it does.
It doesn't suggest that speculative vacancies are a driver of the housing crisis in Australia.
"Buying to Rent" means buying with no intention to sell after a given period of time. It means making an investment focused on the annual rent return.
Often a speculative investor might leave a home vacant while they list it for sale. That's not the same as purchasing a property with the intention of leaving it vacant.
This doesn't make any sense at all. An investor reluctant to "shell out" for upkeep and maintenance is exactly the type of investor that needs the regular rent income to help cover the other costs of ownership like rates, body corporate, interest, et cetera.
Census data shows dwelling occupancy rates have been consistent over the last 15 years:
Note that these rates do not imply "speculative vacancy" is ~10%, as there are many reasons a property may be vacant on census night. They do however demonstrate that vacancy is not the cause of the current housing crisis.
Thanks for the detailed reply.
I was quoting that to explain that speculative vacancy can be a valid, highly profitable strategy for investors. That quote alone isn't evidence, yes.
I don't understand how this can be assumed. Investors wanting to reduce cost and risk doesn't imply they need regular income. Rich investment funds would have the same incentive to do that, right?
Yes, it's not going to be the cause. There isn't going to be a single cause, like you said it isn't even the only cause of mass vacancy. In fact, given it's used as a long-term investment strategy, I suspect that this is a long-term factor that enabled or accelerated the crisis, rather than being an immediate catalyst that suddenly happened a few years ago.
income offsets the cost and risk.
Like if you own a house that costs $5k in while vacant, but an extra $5k in maintenance while rented, why wouldn't you rent it for $50k? Investors always want that extra $40k. There is some risk but it's manageable.
Speculative vacancy is, IMO, barely worth a mention as regards Australia's housing crisis. People might want their investment properties vacant in very specific circumstances for limited periods of time but not in a general "this property has been vacant for 5 years" kind of way.
What generally happens to prices when there's a high demand and a low supply
That would only work if you owned every house.
Like if you buy a house, why would you forego the rent income just so everyone else's rent increases?
Why do they get all the money and not buy anything with it? Billionaires are horders, they don't use what they hoard.
Billionaires dont leave their billions sitting in a bank. Of course they buy things with it.
They demonstrably don't. They "buy" assets and stocks and some shit, but that's just another form of hoarding the money. They don't buy things, there is not enough things in the world to buy for them, and that's not what they're after. Elongated Muskrat bought a fucking twitter for an inflated price, and he's still a richest motherfucker in the world.
Do you really think a billionaire would be actively involved in buying houses to hoard them?
They wouldn't give a fuck. If they have excess money they're not looking at the stock market, they would just transfer the excess money to the trust that manages their excess money.
Billionaires are a big problem, they shouldn't exist, but you haven't drawn a real connection between billionaires and the Australian housing problem.
Doesn't matter how active they are. Yeah, most of of them don't give a shit that a particular scheme of theirs that some firm runs on their behalf buys new houses and uses them as assets. They are still the reason this all happens, they are the main catalyst for this shady practice. I mean, there is also shady corpos, but I pretty much lump all of that in one shitty ball of greed, like a hatesphere of evil of some sorts.
Treating houses as assets contributes to housing problem everywhere where there is no strong regulations against it.
Sorry chief. You're just making up nonsense based on the vibe. Everyone hates billionaires for good reason but they're not driving the housing crisis in Australia.
Covid made a lot of people realise they couldn't stand their housemates, airbnb slices, dwelling availability (empty places that no one wants to buy or want to landbank) , population shifts eg: one house of two people divorce, now need two houses, kid grows up and moves out etc etc.... lots of reasons.
This is the correct answer. Fewer average occupants per house, for a variety of reasons.
How many of these dwellings are available to rent long-term? The ABS definition is very broad:
So AirBnB/Stayz/etc is a contributing problem.
Definitely, although my understanding is that even places like student accommodation and aged care homes contribute to that figure.
Numbers can lie, or at the very least obfuscate the truth. Consider the following, as an example:
Families are having fewer children, so the average number of people per home has dropped (eg. from 4/home to 3/home). That would mean we need 33% more homes just to account for the same population.
New housing stock may not meet needs; a tonne of studio, 1 bedroom inner city apartments may not be suitable for the above families, so demand for existing stock just increases.