Australia's housing shortage is set to rocket to a shortfall of nearly half a million dwellings within ten years.
According to the Housing Industry Association, the national shortfall of dwellings - currently estimated at 190,000 - will widen to 466,000 by 2020 due to population growth. HIA chief economist Harley Dale also blamed planning constraints on for the projected increase.
"At the end of the day, the lack of adequate, affordable land supply is at the heart of the problem," he told the Australian Associated Press. "The number of processes a development must go through is higher now than was the case 10 years ago. We are regressing rather than progressing in terms of the bureaucracy involved in building a new home."
Dale estimated that it takes seven to eight years for a greenfield site to reach completion - an "unnecessarily long period that pushes up costs and reduces supply".
