The Federal Government’s $10bn Housing Future Fund sends a strong message of intent but is unlikely meaningfully impact the growing shortfall in affordable and social housing across Australia.
In a significant report released today, the Urban Development Institute of Australia shows that by leveraging the development industry’s capability and private capital, Government would have a much better chance of closing the gap of housing across the spectrum.
“Our Build to Rent report shows that BTR can be delivered by the development industry at scale with implementation of reforms that level the playing field with build to sell housing,” said Maxwell Shifman, UDIA National President.
Ahead of the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council’s review of the barriers to establishing BTR, UDIA National’s report outlines the core challenges and provides nine practical solutions designed to be readily implemented as a part of the Government’s National Housing Accord to accelerate housing delivery across the spectrum.
One recommendation by UDIA is that private BTR development should be incentivised to cover the rental gap for private affordable BTR housing, by way of the reintroduction of an NRAS-like scheme, to help deliver more housing under the Future Fund.
The report cites examples from overseas where success has been achieved with BTR to boost scale across at-market and affordable housing.
A concerted effort is needed from Governments to harness more diverse market housing supply options like Build to Rent (BTR) to overcome the affordable housing shortfall. The Federal Government has an important role through the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA) to help States/Territories provide CHP incentives to BTR projects that provide affordable housing.
UDIA National stands ready to work with government and industry to drive BTR so that more affordable and social housing can be delivered across the housing spectrum.
The Graph in the report was provided by Colliers November 2022
The full report can be found here UDIA National – Driving Build to Rent Policy Paper
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Media: Deanna Lane |National Media & Communications Manager | 0416 295 898 | media@udia.com.au