The Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) welcomed attendance at Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Queensland Housing Summit in a bid to address the urgency around numerous housing supply issues.
REIA President, Hayden Groves said affordable housing is crucial to maintaining quality of living for Queenslanders who have suffered acutely from supply and affordability challenges in the past three years for both home sales and rentals.
“Housing affordability declined in Queensland over the September quarter and over the year. The proportion of family income devoted to meeting average loan repayments increased to 34.8% over the quarter. This was an increase of 2.8 percentage points over the quarter and 5.1 percentage points over the year.
“Rental affordability in Queensland also declined over the same quarter and over the year. The proportion of family income required to meet median rent increased to 22.7%, an increase of 2.0 percentage points over the quarter and 2.6 percentage points over the year.
“Queensland had the highest decline in rental affordability over the June quarter due to lack of stock.
“Further, the Treasurer identified 20,000 empty or zombie homes that need to be incentivised back on the market.
“Practical actions that result in more existing homes coming to market and being built must be the legacy of the Queensland Housing Summit otherwise it will amount to yet another talk fest.”
Mr Groves said he was pleased that ideological divides around property stakeholders and investors being a barrier to housing supply was recognised at the summit.
“The politics of housing, especially in Queensland, has become so fraught it is great there was almost universal recognition this needs to be overcome to effect real change.
