NAB boss delivers urgent housing supply warning

afr.com:

National Australia Bank chief executive Ross McEwan has told parliament that urgent action is needed to accelerate housing supply otherwise rising migration will put even more upward pressure on house prices and rents.

Mr McEwan, speaking to parliament’s House of Representatives economics committee on Wednesday, said there was a “chronic undersupply” of stock that would clash with the nation’s rising population, driving prices up in what is already a “pretty pressured system at the moment”.

Ross McEwan.“We need to get more land available for the building of houses very quickly.” Martin Ollman

The stark warning comes as house prices in capital cities like Sydney start to rebound – Sydney house prices are up 6.7 per cent since January – and rents in the NSW capital have only just flat-lined after soaring since March 2021.

Mr McEwan told the committee, “We need to get more land available for the building of houses very quickly”, and “fast-tracking planning permissions and development would be the single most effective way” to reduce stress.

“A co-ordinated effort by state and territory governments to introduce faster, simpler and more consistent processes for approving land development and residential construction will lift supply,” he said.

“We need to get building houses,” said Mr McEwan, who added later in the hearings that construction must be concentrated in major cities with existing infrastructure, and criticised local “NIMBY” councils rejecting development. “People who found that they could have a three-storey building built beside them might not like it, but… we need to get ourselves to a point where we think ‘where are the transport hubs’ because we can’t redo infrastructure.”

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