“Australia’s average household size has been shrinking dramatically,” said Colleen Peterson, the chief executive of planning consultancy Ratio.
“We were having fewer children and were delaying the age at which we have those children and we’re living longer. So all those things add up to fewer larger families and older families of one to two are living much longer. We’ve been on that trend for 20, maybe 30 years.”
Of course, migration is playing a role. The federal government’s National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation in March predicted that a slump in new housing construction and growth in migration would widen the shortfall of homes to 106,300 by 2027 from 62,900 last year.
Last month, the agency said the deficit could deepen as a result of
bigger-than-expected predictions of migrants.
“We estimate a gap of about 106,000 is going to emerge over the next five years, but ... if we do get net overseas migration in the realm of 650,000 over this year and next year, we could see this gap grow to about 175,000,” NHFIC head of research Hugh Hartigan said.
“So if anything, our numbers are
an underestimate.”
https://www.afr.com/property/residential/the-reasons-for-the-housing-crisis-go-w...Mothra's 'far greater minds' at work, significantly underestimating migrant numbers.
Migration is a significant factor in the housing shortage. Not the only one, of course, but it is significant and migrant arrivals are consistently UNDERestimated by those 'great minds'.