Master Builders Australia (MBA) is warning of a ‘troubling picture for the nation’s housing landscape’.
Describing themselves as ‘the national voice of the $200 billion building and construction industry’, MBA’s comments come in response to recently released Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data last week.
The data shows over the past year alone, material costs have risen by 13.5 per cent for bricks , 11.6 per cent for paint, 11.0 per cent for sand and +9.9 per cent for plaster products.
Inflation, rental price pressures, slow building approvals and lending indicators are also ‘exacerbating the existing housing crisis’, the MBA says.
‘We are not building enough homes, and when we do, they take too long to build and are too expensive.
‘With these changes, it would only get worse.
‘Everyone pays a price when there are fewer tradie businesses and higher costs for builders.’
Bit more complex than that, but those are indeed symptoms of the current dynamic. From a tradies point of view.
This is an opportunity to rethink “ the house” – materials, paint, structure, design, lifecycle etc. There are solutions we are still working in an old paradigm. We need to design to environment and make houses climate resistant and self sustaining. We need to substitute so we don’t need paint for example. The outcome will be housed for well-being and that don’t cost us and the earth.
Translation: Two families per pod, and you won’t be allowed to own the pod.
We need to find a new planet with abundant cheap materials like timber …… …..
That has never been true for any of the times we have had critical shortages of anything. We have always created new resources that were cheaper, abundant, and don’t require forcing anyone to adopt it. That said, I do want my White People to get off this dung ball, or in this case, start building in stone again. We were very good at it, and the structures last a very long time. Putting a halt to importing infinity brown bodies for the purpose of a financial system trick, would solve a lot of the most pressing issues.
Sloppy work from tradies, not returning to complete the job, expecting a premium, this is the new standard. Big domestic building companies are difficult to deal with, everything is possible until you pay a deposit then it’s just we don’t deal with that company or no we can’t do that.
Im with Alison, There are already solutions out there, 3d house printers, hemp not forests, recycled waste instead of sand our tradies are suffering in 44-45 degree heat so thats another issue that needs solving, quality prefab useing sustainable products, the industry and the peoples program needs to change. 🏘
The housing crisis is caused by red tape, green tape, baby boomers, empty nesters, developers, estate agents, banks, councils, planers, NIMBY,s foreign buyers, population growth, negative gearing, golf courses, drought in Panama, Shipping attacks in the Red Sea, greens who want trees for koalas, residents who want open space, and corruption on a scale that has the U N worried.