Dr Chalmers said super investment in infrastructure had not been matched by “what we would love to see in residential housing, and the obvious question that raises for all of us is how do we turn that around”.
“I think partnerships with the states will be really critical. So, I think to deliver those properties, leverage is critical, using estates and using a range of partnerships from both the financial sector and also developers builders to ensure that you can deliver in that timeframe.” At its Jobs and Skills Summit earlier this month, the federal government said it would use $575 million from the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to improve the risk/reward ratio in affordable and social housing developments, in the hope of encouraging more investment.
This he said made it impossible for developers to reach pre-sale thresholds to securing construction financing. He also called for a level playing field in terms of withholding tax to bring in foreign investors, which had funded the growth of the student housing sector. Bernard Armstrong, chief executive of Cedar Pacific Asset Management, said state-level taxes on foreign buyers were also a drag.