We need 186,000 dwellings per year to keep up: HIA

Australia requires 186,000 dwellings per year to keep up with demand, according to the Housing Industry Association’s (HIA) Housing Australia Future report.

HIA economist Geordan Murray said that one of the greatest policy challenges in coming decades is ensuring a sufficient supply of new dwellings to house a growing and ageing population.

"Within a plethora of potential scenarios, the most likely outcome is an annual new home building requirement between now and 2050 that is considerably higher than was has been achieved over the last 20 years,” said Murray.

“In a scenario where Australia's population and its real incomes grow at a medium rate – a scenario we believe most plausible – the nation will need to build an average of around 186,000 dwellings per annum.”

This includes 152,000 homes to provide housing to new households, and 30,000 to 35,000 dwellings to assist offset demolished homes and satisfy demand for additional housing as a result of rising incomes.

“In 2013/14, the number of new homes built was about the same as the number of new homes demanded by the population during the year,” he said.

“Unfortunately a match of this kind is an aberration - throughout much of the last decade there was a considerable mismatch between the level of demand for housing and the amount of new home building.”