Khurram Saeed can speak from experience about one of the big challenges facing governments trying to ease the housing crisis by encouraging higher-density living: the great Aussie dream includes a backyard.

For many people, he says, the idea of owning a home goes hand in glove with having the land that the residence sits upon. That especially includes migrants who have moved from countries where millions of people live in teeming cities, such as India, China or his home country of Pakistan.