Property developer One Living, backed by former Macquarie banker turned investment manager Chris Green’s investment firm, has unveiled plans to bring more institutional capital into housing to help address the national supply crisis.

The New York-based investor has focused his firm, GreenPoint Partners, on addressing the supply shortage hitting middle market housing in Australia.

It is backing the new One Living business to develop more than 1000 units along the eastern seaboard. The new firm is starting with a development on Mona Vale Road, on the border of Mona Vale and Pymble, in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, with around 140 apartments planned. They are eyeing off more sites across the city.

With cost pressures rising in the industry, One Living’s model is to be a vertically integrated developer-builder, so it can respond directly to the housing gap by removing the cost inefficiencies embedded in traditional residential delivery.

“We are building a platform designed to operate at scale and starting in a market where there’s a clear need for quality, attainable housing,” One Living joint managing director Joseph Scuderi said.

“It’s that missing middle – it’s that attainable end of housing… that’s what most Australians invest into and what Australians can actually afford.”

<img alt="Mona Vale" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="798dfa93-4941-4db6-a696-31e9dc18e81c" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%202.31.50%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=mKBqi5C_DmeiXS.AtJkcR8LQIxqCqmFi" />

GreenPoint Partners brings years of experience assembling and scaling real estate operating businesses across major markets. And Green sees a big opportunity in Australia.

“For its size, sophistication and importance to the community, Australia’s living sector has remained largely under-institutionalised, which represents significant opportunity,” Green said. “GreenPoint identified that gap, assembled the right team, and is backing One Living to build a platform that is aligned to market needs.”

Green said being a builder-developer would give the company the capacity and flexibility it required to deliver reasonably-priced homes.

“We want it to be at that attainable level; not super high end luxury but at that attainable level,” he said.

<img alt="Mona Vale" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="74a5344a-4b26-4d4a-ada3-056b1220be77" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%202.32.15%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=vY8hXHO4reBMdO8ZXMWCNtGZJofUPQ3j" />

&nbsp;

One Living will undertake a component of affordable housing in its schemes, which it will own and operate, and it could also run build-to-rent on some sites.

Green praised local policy settings.

“The NSW government is being very supportive, strategic and pragmatic in terms of how do we generate more supply of housing,” he said. “We think it’s actually positive for development and the bit that’s been lacking at that attainable level is that it’s lots of relatively small private developers, whereas we want to create an institutional platform.”

One Living is also&nbsp;looking at high-density projects and could take on more institutional funding in the future.

“The way we will be able to achieve economies of scale is through size,” Green added.

Joel Robinson

One Living enters Sydney's new apartment market with Northern Beaches site acquisition

It's been several years since there's been an opportunity to buy a brand new townhome in Melbourne's coastal suburb of Mordialloc. Even apartment developments in recent times have been few and far between in the area.

Local developer LDS Property identified the gap in new housing, securing a site on White Street, directly opposite&nbsp;Woodlands Golf Club Mordialloc. They've recently launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-townhouses/wm-residences-mordialloc-102-white-street-mordialloc-vic-3195">WM Residences</a>, just 13 townhouses which they have already started building.

Projects by Buxton Director Heath Thompson, who is selling WM Residences, says the townhouses x that perfect middle ground be

"Mordialloc residents have had limited options to downsize within the suburb, often forcing them to look elsewhere despite long-standing ties to the area," Thompson says.

"With very little comparable new supply coming to market, projects like WM Residences are well placed, particularly as buyers look to capitalise on current conditions amid constrained supply."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6109]

The development, designed by regarded architecture firm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/architects/ewert-leaf">Ewert Leaf</a>,&nbsp;adopts a deliberately restrained architectural approach, focusing on simplicity, durability and liveability rather than overt design gestures.

The boutique scale is central to the offering. With only 13 three-bedroom residences, each home is configured to prioritise functional layouts and everyday use, supported by private terraces and secure two-car garages.

Ewert Leaf’s design response leans into a calm, neutral material palette. Interiors are defined by oak flooring, white walls and soft finishes, creating a consistent and understated backdrop. The approach avoids trend-driven detailing in favour of longevity, with an emphasis on natural light and spatial clarity.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6110]

Beyond aesthetics, the homes are designed to meet contemporary performance expectations. Each residence targets a minimum 6-star energy rating, incorporating double glazing, comprehensive insulation and all-electric Bosch appliances.

The project’s location supports a walkable coastal lifestyle, sitting within close proximity to Mordialloc’s foreshore, Main Street retail strip and the train station. Local cafés and dining venues, including Suburbia Deli and Hendriks Café, are within a short walk, reinforcing the area’s established neighbourhood character.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6116]

While <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developments/mordialloc-vic-3195">Mordialloc</a> is often defined by its beach and pier, the project taps into other areas of day to day living, offering easy access to local food, casual dining and transport, rather than positioning itself purely as a lifestyle retreat.

WM Residences reflects a continued trend across Melbourne’s coastal suburbs towards smaller-scale, design-led townhouse developments, particularly on infill sites where proximity to amenity is already established.

With construction commenced prior to its market entry, the project aligns with a growing preference among buyers for developments with visible progress and defined delivery timeframes.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=134646]

WM Residences fills gap in Mordialloc townhouse market

&nbsp;

Developer GURNER™ Group has revealed $1.65 billion in residential sales nationally across the 12 months to December 2025, driven largely by the continued momentum of its Docklands wellness-focused precinct, Elysium Fields.

The sales result was generated across seven projects in Victoria and New South Wales, headlined by Elysium Fields, GURNER™’s $2.75 billion mixed-use precinct planned for Harbour Esplanade in Docklands.

The project has recorded more than $500 million in sales across the first three towers, equating to around 580 apartments sold.

The first tower, Helios, has now sold out of its 240 private residences, with GURNER™ preparing to release a premium penthouse collection comprising 15 three-bedroom penthouses in coming weeks.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370975]

Elysium Fields is being developed on the long-held 20,000 sqm Docklands site at 208-226 Harbour Esplanade, which had remained undeveloped for more than two decades prior to GURNER™ taking over the project around four years ago.

Construction has now commenced across four towers ranging between 18 and 30 storeys, with Hamilton Marino and Maxcon appointed as builders.

Once complete, the precinct is expected to comprise around 1,100 residences, alongside retail, hospitality and public realm uses integrated throughout the site.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370981]

Designed by Fraser &amp; Partners in collaboration with GURNER™ Design House, the project has been positioned around the developer’s broader focus on wellness-led residential living.

“We don’t sell apartments. We create a true luxury lifestyle that simply doesn’t exist elsewhere in the market today,” Founder and Executive Chairman Tim Gurner said.

“To deliver that requires an extraordinary level of detail, coordination and discipline across multiple verticals, from design and hospitality through to wellness and service.”

“We’ve always believed that living extends far beyond the physical residence. It’s about how you feel the moment you arrive, how you live day-to-day, and the ecosystem that supports that.” 
[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370977]

The project’s design places a heavy focus on landscaping, wellness amenities and biophilic design principles.

Plans include around 3,700 sqm of landscaped gardens and open space throughout the precinct, alongside a retail and dining offering spanning approximately 5,000 sqm.

The broader public realm strategy centres around what GURNER™ describes as the “Path of Life”, an urban forest and landscaped pedestrian environment intended to connect the various buildings and wellness spaces across the precinct.

The apartments themselves will incorporate a range of wellness-focused inclusions, including purified air and water systems, circadian lighting, antimicrobial surfaces, and optional in-home wellness upgrades.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370980]

Gurner said the company’s experience through its Saint Haven wellness clubs had directly informed the residential offering now being incorporated into Elysium Fields.

“We’re seeing a clear global shift toward longevity, performance and proactive health,” Gurner said.

“Our role is to deliver that in a way that feels seamless, highly private and beautifully resolved within the environments we create.”

A large component of the wellness offering is planned through the resident amenity and health facilities proposed within the precinct.

That includes plans for bathing and recovery facilities spread throughout the towers, incorporating mineral pools, saunas, steam rooms, flotation therapy, red light therapy and wellness lounges.

The developer is also seeking approvals for what it describes as a “reverse ageing medical clinic” within the precinct.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370978]

According to project information released by the group, the proposed facility would include cryotherapy, IV infusion therapy, infrared and dry saunas, PEMF beds, MRIs, DEXA scans, brain scans and blood analysis services.

Within the first tower, Helios, residents will also have access to a dedicated amenity offering known as the Sky Private Club.

The upper 15 levels of the building will include private lounges, dining spaces, rooftop amenities and optional private wellness studios integrated within residences.

The Helios tower itself comprises 260 apartments ranging between 60 sqm and 300 sqm, including a collection of penthouses.

That includes a planned two-storey penthouse spanning around 600 sqm with uninterrupted bay views.

The Elysium Fields precinct is being delivered in partnership with Digital Harbour Holdings, a consortium that includes the Liberman family, which controls the development rights across the Docklands site.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370979]

The sales result comes as GURNER™ continues expanding its national development pipeline beyond Victoria.

“We have a strong pipeline across Australia and are now focused on scaling into key markets including New South Wales and Queensland, while continuing to build on our Melbourne base,” Gurner said.

“We currently have more than $3 billion in the market, growing to over $5 billion by October, and expect to materially outperform last year in the 2026 calendar year.”

The result also reflects the continued strength of the upper-end apartment market in Melbourne, particularly for owner-occupier-focused product with large-scale amenity and lifestyle offerings.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=144441]

Record result anchored by the Group’s “utopian” Elysium Fields precinct – defying market headwinds in Docklands.

Elysium Fields drive Gurner to $1.65 billion in apartment sales over 2025

National Australia Bank (NAB) will fund <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/palmera-residences-gold-coast-18-garfield-terrace-surfers-paradise-qld-4217">Palmera</a>, a $1 billion, 52-level luxury residential tower being developed by Central Equity in one of the Gold Coast’s most tightly held coastal locations at Northcliffe.

The project, launched recently by <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/central-equity">Central Equity</a>, one of Victoria’s largest private residential developers, comes at a time when construction funding for large residential developments has become increasingly competitive as lenders tighten exposure to the sector.

Multiplex has been appointed the builder, and construction is now underway.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=108274 project_image_fid=365784]

Since its first project, Central Equity has delivered more than 85 residential developments with a combined end value exceeding $8 billion.

Palmera reflects Central Equity’s growing focus on the Gold Coast luxury apartment market and continues a relationship between Central Equity and NAB that dates back to the late 1980s, when the bank funded one of Melbourne’s earliest inner-city residential towers at a time when high-rise apartment living in the CBD was largely unproven.

“NAB’s funding of Central Equity’s $36 million CBD development in the late 1980’s to the financing of the billion-dollar tower today highlights the long-term relationship between the two organisations in delivering major residential projects” said Central Equity Founder and Chairman Eddie Kutner.

He said NAB’s early support was instrumental in helping establish the company’s development model.

“When we commenced our first residential tower in the late 1980s the concept of funding off-the-plan apartments was still largely untested in Australia,” Kutner said.

“NAB recognised the opportunity early and supported the project when others were uncertain. That relationship has now continued for more than 37 years across many developments.”

[smartcode_project:default project_id=108274 project_image_fid=365771]

Central Equity was established in 1987 when Melbourne’s CBD and Southbank precinct were still dominated by warehouses and commercial buildings. Fewer than 100 residents lived in Southbank at the time, and large-scale residential development in the inner city was not widely considered.

Recognising changing demographics and lifestyle preferences, the company began developing high-rise residential projects designed to bring permanent residents into the city centre.

Central Equity has provided accommodation for approximately 40,000 residents across Melbourne’s CBD and Southbank, while also incorporating supporting infrastructure including essential lifestyle facilities like retail spaces, childcare facilities and neighbourhood activity centres.

Central Equity has spent many years assembling the Palmera development site on the corner of Garfield Terrace and Frederick Street in Northcliffe, creating a supersite of around 3,300 sqm.

The developer said the Palmera apartment tower reflects its long-term view of the Gold Coast as a growing and increasingly diversified economy.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=108274 project_image_fid=365768]

Supported by infrastructure including the light rail network, major road upgrades expanded education, hospital and medical facilities and continued expansion at the Gold Coast Airport with more international and domestic flights.

Positioned in the tightly held Northcliffe precinct, the 52-level tower will deliver 347 apartments, targeting buyers seeking a high-end coastal lifestyle, from downsizers to interstate investors.

Designed by Marchese Partners with interiors by DBI, Palmera has been conceived as a next-generation residential offering, featuring a collection of oversized apartments, with premium three-bedroom residences offering sweeping northern views stretching from Surfers Paradise through to Burleigh Heads.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=108274]

NAB funds $1 billion Surfers Paradise apartment development, Palmera

Two years after completing one of the newest developments in North Sydney, developer <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/aqualand-australia">Aqualand</a> is turning its attention to the rapidly evolving St Leonards apartment market.

The developer, which completed AURA by Aqualand on North Sydney's Walker Street, has lodged plans for a 5,918 sqm site at <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/33-37-herbert-street-st-leonards-nsw-2065">33-37 Herbert Street, St Leonards,</a> seeking approval for a pair of residential towers rising above a shared podium opposite Royal North Shore Hospital.

The proposal forms part of the broader transformation underway across the St Leonards-Crows Nest precinct, where former industrial and commercial sites are increasingly being redeveloped into high-density mixed-use projects tied to major transport infrastructure.

<img alt="Aqualand" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="2cc428cf-fe70-4cac-9cd5-264ad53af62c" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%209.51.56%E2%80%AFAM.png?VersionId=otKSnHtbjAvAddOnovyXQMgcAwE6DMe1" />

According to the planning documents, the site sits “within the St Leonards–Crows Nest Strategic Centre, identified by the NSW Government as a key area for accommodating future jobs and housing across Sydney.”

The proposal has been designed by fjcstudio, formerly FJMT Studio, and is being progressed through the State Significant Development pathway due to its scale and affordable housing provision.

The scheme would comprise 413 apartments, including 46 affordable housing units, alongside retail and commercial uses fronting Herbert Street. The project would also include communal open space, landscaping, a swimming pool, gymnasium, children’s play areas and podium-level resident amenities.

Planning documents show the development would consist of a part-13, part-39 storey tower form positioned above a four-storey podium.

“The development comprises a unified podium that activates the street interface, and two setback towers to accommodate new housing supply while maintaining an appropriate human scale at ground level,” fjcstudio noted in its Design Report.

The northern and southern towers have been shaped to respond to the surrounding skyline while also limiting overshadowing impacts to nearby public open space, particularly Talus Reserve.

The design report said the differing tower heights were intended to “contribute to a varied skyline while responding to the surrounding built form context and solar access considerations.”

<img alt="Aqualand" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="36da62dc-ff9e-41f2-a7e3-7be38373751c" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%209.51.45%E2%80%AFAM_0.png?VersionId=Mo6Rp2r.XRLTzIfg_PEEpw8NepDH8UBs" />

The site sits directly opposite Royal North Shore Hospital and within walking distance of both St Leonards Station and the new Crows Nest Metro station.

While the site itself sits just outside the formal Crows Nest Transport Oriented Development boundary, the planning documents repeatedly reference its alignment with the broader TOD objectives reshaping the Lower North Shore.

“The site is located adjacent to St Leonards Station and in close proximity to Crows Nest Metro which is within the Crows Nest Transit Orientated Development Accelerated Precinct which has been identified by the NSW Government to support housing delivery,” the Design Verification Statement noted.

According to fjcstudio, the project has been designed to respond to the broader transition occurring across St Leonards, where increasing residential density is being concentrated around transport infrastructure and employment hubs.

“The broader precinct is undergoing significant change, with a mix of existing mid-rise buildings and newer high-density developments,” the report stated.

“Recent and approved projects indicate a consistent shift toward taller built form, typically organised as tower-and-podium typologies with more active ground levels.”

The proposal includes close to 6,000 sqm of retail and commercial space across the ground floor and podium levels, designed to create a more activated street edge along Herbert Street.

Aqualand’s plans would also introduce a landscaped podium shared between the two towers, with communal open space in the form of a podium rooftop designed to support resident interaction and improve urban greening outcomes. The scheme would also introduce pocket parks at the northern and southern ends of the site, including a landscaped area at the corner of Herbert and Ella streets designed to improve pedestrian amenity and soften the streetscape.

&nbsp;

The proposal is being progressed through the NSW Government’s Housing Delivery Authority pathway, which was introduced to accelerate housing supply across the state. The application was declared State Significant Development in April 2025 following an expression of interest process.

<img alt="Aqualand" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="faf6d97d-2671-454f-b85a-fe1c6a7be608" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%209.51.49%E2%80%AFAM.png?VersionId=diVd28OBVr5.YV.7prrOz.uAanwwwm7a" />

St Leonards has been particularly active with new developments in recent weeks. Developer SP Setia’s <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/news/nsw/first-look-sp-setia-targets-st-leonards-skyline-with-40-storey-tod-tower">plans for a new 42-storey tower</a> recently went on exhibition through the same pathway, while <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/news/nsw/first-look-stockland-plans-52-storey-538-apartment-st-leonards-tower">Stockland’s 52-storey tower proposal</a> was also recently unveiled.

Aside from the St Leonards project, which is expected to take around nine months to move through the approvals process ahead of a potential 2027 launch, Aqualand is also preparing to launch Boronia, a new apartment project in Roseville comprising around 111 apartments on Larkin Street.

The developer also has approvals in place for the next stage of the Barangaroo precinct, which will feature new residential, retail, hospitality and community uses, alongside a new metro entry across the five-hectare site.

More than 50 new retail destinations are planned for Central Barangaroo, alongside a 270-metre-long boulevard connecting Hickson Park to Nawi Cove. Together with Harbour Park, more than 50 per cent of the precinct will comprise public open space and parkland.

First look: Aqualand joins St Leonards apartment party

Housing Sector

There was one surprise for the housing sector in tonight's federal budget, and three foreshadowed housing measures were made official.

The federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg advised the parliament in his budget speech that new house starts were now at the highest level in 20 years. 

"New loans to first home buyers reached their highest level in nearly 12 years.

"HomeBuilder has been a huge success and our $2 billion investment in affordable housing is bringing on more supply," he said.

"Our housing measures go even further," he added.

"Helping another 10,000 first home buyers build a new home with a 5 per cent deposit.

"Supporting 10,000 single parents to purchase a home with a 2 per cent deposit. 

"Increasing the amount that can be released under the First Home Super Saver Scheme from $30,000 to $50,000.

"Under the Coalition, home ownership will always be supported," he noted.

The budget effectively continued the First Home Low Deposit Scheme for new homes and off the plan acquistions, and tweaked the First Home Super Saver Scheme, and introduced a new scheme for single parents.

The 10,000 Family Home Guarantees will be made available for single parents over the next four financial years.

The Family Home Guarantee will be available regardless of whether that single parent is a first home buyer or previous owner-occupier. 

Applicants have an annual taxable income of no more than $125,000. 

A fact sheet with further information on eligibility criteria will be available on the NHFIC’s website next week.

The surprise announcement was the government will lower the minimum age for the downsizer super contribution from 65 to 60.

“This will allow Australians nearing retirement to make a one-off post-tax contribution of up to $300,000 per person (or $600,000 per couple) when they sell their family home,” the budget documents advised.

“This improves the flexibility for Australians to contribute to their superannuation savings, and may encourage people to downsize sooner and increase the supply of family homes.”

The budgetary measure will be argued as positive for first home buyers and next home buyers by freeing up established housing stock for younger property buyers.

There was a warning after the budget announcement from the Property Council on the long-term economic consequences of idling population growth.
 
"Budget assumptions anticipate that Australia’s population growth will be limited to only 0.2 per cent over in the next financial year. Net overseas migration is forecast at -77,000 in 2021/22, with a return to normal levels of migration not expected until 2024/25," the PCA noted.
 
“The Budget has revealed that our restricted border is the biggest constraint on our economy.
 
“Our lack of growth is going to catch up with us with economic and employment growth expectations slowing over the forward estimates.
 
“Population growth is not an optional extra for Australia’s economy," the PCA said.

The budget also made $15 billion in additional infrastructure commitments including for:

a) the North‑South Corridor in South Australia
b) the Great Western Highway and Newcastle airport in New South Wales
c) the new Melbourne Intermodal Terminal in Victoria 
d) the Bruce Highway in Queensland
e) METRONET in Western Australia
f) highway upgrades in the Northern Territory
g) Light Rail Stage 2A in the Australian Capital Territory and
h) Midland Highway upgrades in Tasmania.

Josh Frydenberg noted that "when construction work began to dry up, HomeBuilder came to the rescue."



jchancellor

Federal Budget formalises three mooted housing measures

<html><body>
Opening Remarks to Plenary Panel at the Australasian Housing Researchers Conference
Luci Ellis 
Assistant Governor, RBA
In financial stability, my old role, housing is certainly crucial. Housing is the biggest asset most households will own and the bulk of household sector wealth. Lending against housing is also a large part of financial sector assets. Housing outcomes are therefore central both to the welfare of households and the stability of the financial system.
The housing sector is also crucial on the monetary policy side, my new role. As a sector, it is especially sensitive to interest rates. It is a key part of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. Housing prices respond to interest rates, and in turn affect household consumption through wealth and collateral effects. And the housing construction industry is one of the most interest-sensitive.
The theme of this conference is ‘Housing and Inequality’. I'd like to talk about two aspects of that. First, there's the inequality – or rather, diversity – between countries. Second, there's the inequality represented by the distribution of housing outcomes across residents of a particular country.
Institutions Matter: The Cross-country Dimension
On the first, we can summarise by saying that institutions matter. Country-specific features are very important to housing outcomes, including the outcomes most relevant to monetary and financial stability policymakers.
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1">A range of institutions determine the idiosyncratic risk that households face, and thus the credit risk they pose to lenders. These include labour market institutions, the funding of health care, and the structure and generosity of the social safety net.</li>
<li class="li1">Geographic and other factors determine the urban structure, which in turn affects the relative price of housing. We know from economic geography that as city populations rise – and the amenities that go together with that – housing prices rise even relative to the higher incomes that often go along with big-city living. So urban concentration affects macro-level variables, like the ratio of housing prices to household incomes, as well as individual-level outcomes, such as people's lifetime housing experiences.</li>
<li class="li1">The structure of the mortgage market matters, for example whether fixed or variable-rate mortgages predominate. These features are in turn affected by a range of tax and other institutional factors. An example of a feature quite specific to Australia is the popularity of linked offset accounts. These change the interpretation of debt data that do not adjust for balances in these accounts. They also change assessments of the resilience of the household sector to various kinds of shocks.</li>
</ul>
Taken together, these factors suggest that we can't assume a single value of any particular macro-level ratio exists that is ‘right’ for all countries or for all time. It depends. We can't assume that a particular level of debt is always and everywhere sustainable. It depends on who has the debt and what kind of credit risk they pose. We can't assume that a particular level of prices is ‘correct’ or ‘sustainable’ in all circumstances.
What we can do is get some sense of the relativities between countries that you might expect, given those institutional and other differences. For example, we can reasonably expect that countries where much of the population lives in smaller, cheaper cities will have lower national aggregate ratios of housing prices to incomes than other countries. That might partly explain why the price-to-income ratio for the United States is relatively low (Graph 1). By contrast, Australia is somewhere around the middle of the pack of mid-sized countries on this metric.
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph1.gif" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph1.gif" alt="">
 
Similar comparisons of household debt-to-income ratios across countries also put Australia in the middle of the pack.[1] The United States is lower, consistent with the lower average price-to-income ratios there. Several small European countries, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, have much higher ratios than Australia does. I would not expect or want Australia's ratio to be as high as it is in those countries. Their institutions are different. In particular, a wider range of debt is tax-deductible in those countries, so households have less incentive to pay debt down.
Distributions Matter: The Micro-level Dimension
The concept of inequality perhaps of most interest to this conference, though, is the differences across households. The way people access housing is not the same. These distributional issues can be considered over several dimensions.
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1">We can consider the distribution of outcomes in the cross-section of households: how outcomes differ for different types of households at a point in time.</li>
<li class="li1">We can consider outcomes for different cohorts: whether the experience of people in a particular age group changes over time.</li>
<li class="li1">We can consider issues of intergenerational distribution: whether outcomes for people in one generation depend on the experiences of their parents.</li>
</ul>
It turns out that these sorts of distributional issues matter for policy. Certainly they matter for financial stability policy. It is rarely the median borrower who defaults. Risk comes from the tails of the distribution. But even something as ‘macro’ as the transmission of monetary policy turns out to depend strongly on distributional considerations (Hughson et al 2016). 
So the Reserve Bank spends a lot of time and resources examining household survey data and other micro-data to inform our macro understanding; some of that work has explicitly touched on inequality as the subject of interest (Dollman et al 2015), while other work has noted the effect of macro-level developments on inequality (La Cava 2016). The rest of my talk today will cover a few interesting findings from this type of analysis. I'm not setting out to be comprehensive here, because that would not be feasible in the time available. But hopefully it will give a flavour of what's possible and the kinds of issues we've looked at.
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li1">Firstly, and unsurprisingly, housing ownership and housing wealth are not equally distributed across the cross-section of households.</li>
<li class="li1">Secondly, fewer young people are home owners now than previous cohorts at the same age. This is partly about demography. If it were purely a story of people being priced out, other outcomes would be different.</li>
<li class="li1">Finally, concerns about access to appropriate housing aren't only about ownership. We should also think about how housing is experienced, including security of tenure.</li>
</ul>
One issue of inequality that generates a lot of public discussion is whether people can purchase their own home. Housing affordability is clearly a concern more generally, because adequate shelter is so important to human welfare. But clearly there is great social interest in how that housing is delivered, who owns it, and who pays for it. Of the many inquiries into housing affordability over the past decade or so, at least two – the Productivity Commission's 2003 Inquiry and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics Inquiry in 2015 – were specifically on home ownership.
At a national level, Australia actually has a home ownership rate that is neither unusually high nor unusually low.[2] Many of the countries that have higher rates seem to manage it by having very high proportions of young adults living with their parents, even into their thirties, rather than renting. But the outcomes do vary across households. We can see this in several independently collected data sets, but for today I'm going to rely mainly on the HILDA survey.
Unsurprisingly, higher-income households are more likely to own their own home, whether with a mortgage or outright (Graph 2). The highest-income group are not only more likely to live in their own home; the wealth represented by their own home, net of debt, is also higher than for lower-income and middle-income households.
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph2.gif" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph2.gif" alt="">
 
More important than income, though, is life stage. Not many teenagers or young adults are heads of households; those that are, are not that likely to own their own home.[3] Over time, people do start purchasing their home. Home ownership rates rise rapidly with age, reaching 80 per cent for households headed by someone aged 55 or more (Graph 3). Housing wealth has the same pattern, largely because the older you are, the longer you have had to pay your mortgage down.
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph3.gif" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph3.gif" alt="">
 
Because higher-income households are more likely to be owner-occupiers, they are also more likely to have mortgage debt (Graph 4). This is why we say that most of the mortgage debt in Australia has been borrowed by those most able to service it. That said, the lower-income households that do have debt, tend to have quite a lot of debt relative to their incomes. Sometimes this is because they have temporarily low incomes, but overall it does speak to the need to be aware of pockets of potential stress within a more benign overall picture.
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph4.gif" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph4.gif" alt="">
 
Participation in the housing market need not be about owning your own home. Many people rent; someone else has to own those dwellings as well. In Australia, most private rental properties are owned by other households. In other words, there are not many companies operating as residential landlords. A good indication of who owns rental properties comes from looking at people who have housing debt other than debt on their own primary residence. In this graph, we have split up the share of people who have any housing debt into those who have only debt on their own home, and those who have some other kind of housing debt; most, but not all, of this second group also have owner-occupier debt. As you can see, this other property debt is even more likely to be held by high-income earners than owner-occupier debt is.
The pattern of rising ownership rates for older age groups does not give everyone comfort that most people will be able to afford a home eventually. People worry that it is becoming harder to achieve home ownership at a given life stage than it used to be. This would be an issue of inequality across cohorts. It is true that home ownership rates have fallen for most age groups over time (Graph 5). The overall ownership rate has stayed fairly steady because the population is ageing. It is also true that ownership rates shifted down between 2006 and 2011; we'll know what happened in 2016 when the Census data come out in a few months.
The 25–34 age group is typically seen as the core group of first home buyers. We can see that ownership rates in this group have fallen by a bit more than 10 percentage points since the 1970s. But we can also see that most of the decline had already happened by the early 1990s, before the big increase in housing prices relative to incomes. What changed during that earlier period was that people started partnering and settling down later in life. The post-war Baby Boom had been characterised by an anomalously young average age at first marriage. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the normal historical pattern started to reassert itself. Ownership rates for young people declined as a result, because many people wait to settle down before they buy a home.
By saying this, I'm not suggesting that people should not worry about whether households can achieve their desired housing tenure. I am suggesting that the situation is more complex than would be suggested by a single-minded focus on a single metric of affordability, such as median housing prices.
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph5.gif" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph5.gif" alt="">
 
Much of the commentary around the difficulty of achieving home ownership centres on the task of accumulating the deposit. It seems common to assume that everyone needs a 20 per cent deposit when they first buy. This isn't actually true: although lenders require some deposit coming from genuine savings, it doesn't have to be as high as 20 per cent. So it's surprising that as housing prices have risen, the distribution of loan-to-valuation ratios – the converse of the deposit – hasn't shifted up over time (Graph 6). If anything it has declined in the past few years for which we have data. It's not entirely clear why this is. And because a high loan-to-valuation ratio does imply higher risk both for the borrower and the lender, it might not be such a bad thing. But it does suggest that, again, the situation is more complex than a simple summary statistic can capture.
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph6.gif" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph6.gif" alt="">
 
One reason why first home buyers haven't needed to increase loan-to-valuation ratios might be that more of them are getting help from friends and family to accumulate the deposit. Careful analysis of the HILDA Survey dataset shows that the share of first home buyers receiving that help has been increasing over the decades, but it actually remains low (Graph 7).
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph7.gif" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph7.gif" alt="">
 
It is common to focus on the different outcomes for owners versus renters in purely financial terms. Another aspect of inequality I would like to talk about today is security of tenure. A range of different data sources confirm that although young people move more often than older people, the big difference is between renters and owners (Graph 8). A similar pattern occurs in countries such as the United States (Bachmann and Cooper 2014).
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph8.gif" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph8.gif" alt="">
 
Looking just at the group of households who can be tracked through the whole life of the HILDA survey, and who didn't switch between owning and renting at any stage, you can also see that renters were also more likely to have moved many times in that 13-year period (Graph 9).
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph9.gif" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/17/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph9.gif" alt="">
 
Some earlier literature has suggested that transaction costs induce home owners to move less often than they might otherwise do, which makes it harder for them to take advantage of changing labour market opportunities (Oswald 1999). That effect doesn't seem clear in Australian data, so I would not draw that conclusion here (Flatau et al 2002). Yet even without the transaction costs of selling a home – including tax, legal fees and agent commissions – we know that moving house can be disruptive and costly. So I question whether all those moves by renters were desired by those households. Many renters are happy with their current home, but are required to move because the lease expired or the landlord sold the property. If we are concerned about inequality of housing outcomes, perhaps we should focus less on the type of tenure, and more on security of tenure.
That's just a brief round-up of some of the issues we have been looking at recently. Housing issues will always be with us, and will always be important to the functions of the Reserve Bank. That's why we value conferences like this: the diverse perspectives offered help us see the bigger picture. I'm certainly looking forward to the rest of the discussion in this session.
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jchancellor-FAypfDUnLy

Housing sector is crucial for monetary policy: RBA's Luci Ellis

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John Symond and Mark Bouris, the rival mortgage brokers, have both slammed plans to change negative gearing rules.
"It will kill the investment market. I think it's a terrible idea," Mr Bouris, the chairman of financial services group Yellow Brick Road told the Australian Financial Review.
Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond said making changes to negative gearing of property would most likely result in unintended, negative consequences for the housing sector which is "a key economic driver of the economy".
"Many property investors who are negatively geared are PAYG taxpayers and their nest eggs will be hit for six in any change," Mr Symond said.
Mark Boris said any change would "rip the guts out of the economy and growth."
"Politicians talk about the amount of money we lose from people claiming negative gearing tax breaks, but I would love to see the impact on the other side, when the investor market dies off.
"There will be less money spent on concrete, bricks, furniture, televisions, plumbing etc."
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