What Australia might learn from countries that have decided housing is more than just an investment.

I've been thinking about affordable housing for quite some time now.

It started with my own experience of renting in retirement, but the more I look into the subject, the more questions I seem to have.

Recently, I attended a multicultural church event where several dignitaries were present, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

I managed to have a brief conversation with him about affordable housing. I explained some of the difficulties I had encountered while trying to find somewhere affordable to live.

The answer I received was essentially:

Supply and demand.

I understand the argument.

If there aren't enough homes and more people want them, then prices and rents will rise.

But as I walked away, I couldn't help thinking:

Is that really the best answer we can give people who need somewhere to live?

Twenty years is a long time

I've recently read evidence presented to a Senate inquiry by NAB chief economist Dr Sally Auld, suggesting that Australia's housing problems could take the better part of a generation to resolve.

Twenty years.

I am not twenty years younger. Neither are millions of other Australians who are already retired or approaching retirement.

So I find myself asking a fairly simple question:

What are people supposed to do while we wait?

People don't live on a twenty-year economic timetable.

They have rent to pay this week.

They have mortgage payments to make this month.

They have children who need somewhere to live now.

And retirees like me have a finite income that doesn't suddenly increase because the price of housing does.

I've lived through a very different housing market

Perhaps my views are influenced by my own experiences.

I bought and sold homes in Britain during the 1960s, before eventually emigrating to New Zealand in 1968.

I went on to buy and sell several more homes in New Zealand through the 1970s and into the 1980s.

Eventually I became freehold.

I later sold my last home after my final restaurant failed, and I've been renting quite happily for many years.

I don't have a problem with renting.

What I do have a problem with is the cost of renting.

Our own rent has risen from $480 a week to $550 a week in just three years.

That's an extra $70 every week — $3,640 a year.

And that is where the word affordability stops being an economic statistic and becomes real life.

Is housing primarily an investment?

The more I look at the Australian housing system, the more I wonder whether we have allowed housing to become something primarily to be invested in rather than something people simply need in order to live.

Developers build.

Banks lend.

Investors buy.

Governments regulate and tax.

And the market decides what a property is worth.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things.

But somewhere in that system, the person who simply wants somewhere affordable to live can become the person with the least influence.

We are frequently told that the answer is supply and demand.

And supply certainly matters.

Australia's National Housing Supply and Affordability Council itself examines supply and demand as central parts of the housing system, alongside affordability, rents, construction and housing outcomes.

But I keep wondering whether supply and demand is the whole answer.

What if the market isn't the only answer?

This is where I started looking outside Australia.

I wasn't looking for a country that had somehow discovered a perfect housing system.

I was looking for countries that had decided that the private market shouldn't be the only way of providing homes.

Singapore is an extraordinary example.

Its Housing & Development Board — HDB — is a statutory government housing authority and the largest housing developer in Singapore. Close to 80% of Singapore's resident population lives in HDB flats, and HDB also provides mortgage loans to eligible buyers.

That doesn't mean Singapore has abolished private housing.

It means the government has decided that providing large-scale public housing is part of its responsibility.

Then there is Vienna.

The City of Vienna owns about 220,000 municipal apartments, while another 200,000 apartments are cooperative housing. The city says more than 60% of Vienna's population lives in subsidised or municipal housing.

Again, Vienna hasn't abolished the private housing market.

It has simply built a very large alternative to it.

Denmark provides another interesting example.

Its social housing sector contains more than 600,000 homes, housing approximately one million people. It accounts for about 21% of Denmark's total housing stock, with homes provided through non-profit housing associations at cost-based rents.

Three countries.

Three different systems.

None is perfect.

But all three demonstrate one important thing:

The market does not have to be the only answer to housing people.

What about Australia?

Australia does have public and community housing.

The problem is the scale.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, around 430,000 Australian households were living in social housing in 2025, representing about 4% of all Australian households. More than 206,000 households were on social-housing waitlists.

The proportion of Australian households in social housing has actually fallen from 4.8% in 2011 to 4.0% in 2025.

The Federal Government clearly recognises that more needs to be done. Its 2026 Homes for Australia plan includes six priorities, including making renting fairer and more affordable and growing the social and affordable housing sector.

So Australia is not ignoring the problem.

But perhaps we're asking the wrong question.

Perhaps we're asking:

“How do we make the housing market work better?”

when we should also be asking:

“How do we make sure people have a home they can actually afford?”

I don't have the answer

I'm certainly not suggesting that Australia should simply copy Singapore, Vienna or Denmark.

Their histories are different.

Their populations are different.

Their housing systems have their own problems.

And I don't pretend to be an economist or a housing expert.

I'm simply someone who has lived through several generations of the housing market.

I've bought homes.

I've sold homes.

I've been freehold.

I've rented.

And now I'm watching housing costs become increasingly difficult for ordinary people to manage.

So perhaps we need to stop arguing about whether developers, banks, landlords, investors or governments are the villain.

Perhaps all of those people and institutions are simply parts of a system that has become too complicated and too expensive.

Maybe the system needs an overhaul

We talk about housing as an investment.

We talk about house prices.

We talk about mortgages and interest rates.

We talk about negative gearing and capital gains tax.

We talk about supply and demand.

All of those things matter.

But underneath all of them is something much simpler.

A home is somewhere to live.

Perhaps we need to start there.

Maybe Australia needs to look much more seriously at building a housing system where government, community housing and the private market all play a part — rather than relying so heavily on the private market to solve a social necessity.

I'm not suggesting that everybody should be given a free house.

I'm suggesting that having a safe and affordable place to live should be treated as an important national objective, not simply the outcome of a property market.

Because while governments debate supply, demand, planning, taxation and interest rates, there are millions of people who aren't debating anything.

They're simply trying to pay the rent.

And that brings me back to the question I asked myself after that conversation:

Is supply and demand really enough?

Or is it time we looked at housing differently?

Perhaps it is time to overhaul the system.