Housing Crisis aka Leadership Problem

(Our Principal, Hayley Van De Ven recently published an article regarding the current hype surrounding changes to CGT and Negative-Gearing policy. This article is a precis of that same article.)

Australia’s Housing Crisis Isn’t Being Caused by Investors or Landlords…

It’s Being Caused by a Failure to Deliver Housing at Scale.

For too long, governments across Australia have approached the housing crisis as a political talking point rather than the national infrastructure challenge it truly is.

Landlords have become the target. Investors have been criticised. Tenants have been left frustrated and struggling.

Yet through all the debate, one issue continues to sit at the centre of the problem: Australia simply is not building enough homes.

Every day, we work directly with buyers, renters, investors, developers, and families trying to navigate one of the toughest housing markets this country has seen. What we’re witnessing isn’t ideological or political - it’s a basic imbalance between supply and demand. There are more people needing homes than there are homes available.

While governments continue focusing heavily on taxation settings and investor policy, housing supply continues to fall further behind population growth. Proposals around capital gains tax, negative gearing adjustments, and long-term housing funding announcements may generate headlines, but they are nowhere near enough to address the scale of Australia’s housing shortage.

Once Legislated, if recent Budget Announcements remain unchanged, this diagram outlines the expected timelines to the proposed changes.

The reality is clear in the numbers. Australia’s National Housing Accord targets 1.2 million new homes by 2029, yet construction is already tracking well behind what is required. At the same time, population growth and migration continue placing enormous pressure on an already undersupplied market.

This is not fundamentally a tax issue.

It is a housing supply issue.

And the strain is being felt by everyone involved.

Property investors - many of whom are ordinary Australians including tradies, small business owners, teachers, nurses, and retirees - are dealing with higher interest rates, rising holding costs, growing compliance burdens, and constant policy uncertainty. Despite this, they still provide the majority of rental accommodation nationwide.

At the same time, tenants are facing some of the tightest rental conditions Australia has experienced in decades. Vacancy rates remain critically low, rents continue rising, and many households are now dedicating enormous portions of their income just to secure stable housing.

Creating division between landlords and tenants has not solved the crisis because neither side is the core problem.

You cannot tax your way out of a housing shortage.

And you cannot blame your way out of it either.

What Australia needs is decisive leadership focused on increasing supply. That means streamlining planning approvals, investing in enabling infrastructure, expanding the construction workforce, embracing faster building technologies like modular housing, and ensuring migration settings are aligned with actual housing capacity.

Most importantly, housing needs to be treated as essential national infrastructure - not political ammunition. Australia needs a ‘Statesman’ as a Leader, not a Politician or an Idealogue. Someone who makes decisions for the present and future Generations, not decisions based on Political Cycles.

For first-home buyers, fewer investors in the market does not magically create more homes to buy.

For renters, discouraging private investment does not increase rental availability.

And for Australians trying to build financial security and stability, political announcements mean very little if actual housing supply continues falling short.

At the end of the day, the solution has always been straightforward:

Australia needs more homes and a political class that focuses on the well-being of current and future generations, rather than Votes.