Australia's Housing Market is Oversupplied

For some years now we have been aware that developers have been marketing overseas, mainly in China and south east Asia, while claiming there is a housing shortage in our home market.

Michael Matusik, Director of Matusik Property Insights, who has been involved in over 500 new residential developments, admits that our housing market is oversupplied. You can read his article via this link - http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/residential/australia-s-housing-market-is-oversupplied.-yes-oversupplied/2011083051360

Because our manufacturing industry has largely gone offshore, the development industry has been used by lazy governments to boost our economy. Migration has been accelerated to feed the housing sector but the numbers of migrants have dropped from around the 300,000 p.a a few years ago to around the 150,000 p.a. so we are now building too much stock, hence the push recently to increase migrant numbers again. At the same time the development industry ignores the social housing shortage because there is not the same degree of economic return. They would rather sell to overseas customers because they are prepared to pay more. Of course, this pushes up prices and so the cost spiral continues.(The reality is that some developers are aggressively marketing overseas selling up to 50% of new housing estate to customers in those markets). 

Its time governments both federal and state start to develop new and innovative activities to drive our economic growth rather than relying on the development industry. As we've said before, to bring in migrants to feed the housing industry is just a ponzi scheme and somewhere along the line it will come to a disastrous end.