Queensland is facing a massive housing shortage, and economists say the situation is only set to worsen.
Bank of Queensland chief economist Peter Munckton said south-east Queensland might be “too attractive for its own good”.
He said the pandemic increased interstate migration to Queensland and the number of homeless people had risen by 22 per cent in five years.
“We still haven’t found a way of cranking up supply to meet the demand,” Mr Munckton said.
The multifaceted issue is caused by a range of issues, but ultimately, the state and the country needed more housing.
“[But] how do we build all these extra houses right now?” Mr Munckton said.
“Where are the workers to actually do that?
“The cost of building has gone up because land prices are going up and the material costs have gone up.”
He said low vacancy rates were driving the price of rent up, which in turn added to the homeless population.
Another solution he suggested was increasing accessibility to regional areas.
“Obviously there’s a lot of land in Australia, but people only want to live in certain places,” Mr Munckton said.
He said connecting big cities to regional towns through public transport would reduce the number of people wanting to live in high-density areas.
“The problem is these are long-term solutions,” he said.
Mr Munckton also weighed in on the unemployment rate, which has risen from 3.5 to 3.7 per cent.
Data revealed 4,300 jobs were lost in Australia last month.
But Mr Munckton said to the job market was “solid”.
“If you do an average of the last three months of unemployment rate, the number is 3.58 per cent,” he said.
“It’s because we have two very strong numbers in February and March, and quite a weak one in April, but if you average it all out… the jobs market is a pretty good.”
He said unemployment was not the biggest issue Australians were facing.
“The issue for Australia right now is, particularly for low-income earners, the wage not keeping up with the cost of living,” Mr Munckton said.
“One of the biggest issues in the cost of living is the cost of housing, whether that be paying off your mortgage or trying to pay the rent and for low-income earners, they’re really struggling with that.”
