Around 163,000 homes were approved over the 2023-24 financial year. That’s the slowest run rate in a decade. It’s also well short of the 240,000 homes needed annually to meet the federal government’s target of 1.2 million new dwellings over the next five years.

That, in a nutshell, sums up the national housing crisis. It’s a shortfall that’s pushing up rents and house prices, which are grinding higher in most markets, despite the burden of high mortgage costs. They’re up around 5 per cent in Sydney. In Perth, where affordability has been a lure for interstate buyers, they have jumped a whopping 24 per cent in the past year.