[andrewstuart]

Australia is heading this direction too.

The government is obsessed with obtaining economic growth via unrestrained population growth.

There's simply not enough houses to increase the population of Australia by 1 million in 18 months and keep adding 2,000 population per day into the future.

People say "this won't end well". It's already ended badly and getting worse.

And the government - mostly landlord owning multi house portfolios - have zero interest in fixing it.

[pcthrowaway]

Ahem, have you heard of Canada?

About 36% more populous than Australia, with more than double the immigration target, and less habitable land.

[andrewstuart]

Yeah I watch with pity our Commonwealth cousins in Canada - terrible in Australia, worse in Canada.

The thing is - why?

Politicians want "economic growth" at literally any price.

And seemingly, the population of Canada (and Australia) want this too - the politicians keep getting voted back in. Though I must say here in Australia the current government at no point gave "unconstrained population growth" as one of its policies - and an election is coming - we'll find out then if people care or not.

The Australian government made a big announcement in December that it would be cutting back population growth perhaps because so many people are angry about it. And yet last month we had the largest population growth in 70 years announced - apparently the government has nothing at all to stop the additional 2,000 people a day arriving.

Australia is in its worst housing crisis in its history, and at the same time there is no restriction at all on foreigners buying Australian housing, real estate is exempt from international money laundering laws - making Australian real estate one of the top places to put your criminal money from Russia or China or Burma or whatever, the government pays tax benefits to property investors so young people cannot buy, houses are being converted into AirBNB tourism accommodation. And still the government fails to act on any of this - the cynical might wonder if all these things driving up house prices is in fact enjoyed and loved and making the landlord politicians happy.

[kredd]

I'm not sure how it's in Australia, but here in Canada, majority of people own their homes. It's not in their best interest to let the housing to depreciate heavily, so they'll go through anything other than letting it burst like in Japan. It also doesn't help when we're not really a manufacturing giant like them, where we could support our economy.

I also know people whose parents' entire retirement plan is just downsizing and using the extra cash to supplement their social benefits. So yeah, kicking the can down the road, hoping some bigger economies figure out a way out of this problem, so we'll just follow along.

And I'm saying this as a renter, who is just in the sidelines with no real desire to buy as of now.

[timbit42]

One reason is that the Baby Boomer generation is nearly 100% retired now and no longer making big money and paying big income and sales taxes. This means government revenues are down, right at the same time that the Baby Boomers will begin heavily leaning on public services, particularly healthcare. Immigration brings workers, who are young enough to not need much healthcare, to replace the Baby Boomers and increases government income and sales tax revenue. It's like a Ponzi scheme they are trying to keep from collapsing. As the Baby Boomers pass on, their homes will become available for younger generations to live in.

[wsc981]

Same in The Netherlands regarding immigration and housing. Probably same in many of the “richer” EU countries.

I believe much of the “Western” world is in slow decline and part of the problem is lax immigration policies especially when combined with a welfare state. In the long run, it’s just not sustainable.

[eropple]

"Immigration policies" are a major contributor to both economic productivity and cost-of-living stabilization within most industrialized countries in the West. They're not lax, good lord are they not, anywhere you'd want to live, and They Terk Er Jobs/Benefits is broadly untrue.

You can believe anything you'd like, you're entitled, but that doesn't mean it's real.

EDIT: And while I am generally loathe to address green-text posts, especially when rightly autokilled, this topic tends to make people think "the truth is being hidden" or whatever, no matter how obviously frothing the post is. So to the claim "four million immigrants in the last 15 years" - total migration into the Netherlands over the last twenty years is 400,000 and net is 220,000. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/dossier/asylum-migration-and-integr...

[tasuki]

I used to live in the Netherlands and paid quite a lot of taxes. I met a surprising number of Dutch who didn't work and lived off the welfare state.

[wsc981]

If you're an immigrant from a (north-)African country or maybe a country like Turkey, it's very easy to live like that.

I once was in financial hardship due to a depression and wanted to apply for welfare. When I visited the local government office to apply for welfare, probably 90% of people were from African countries.

The local government made it complicated for me to apply for welfare, so eventually I gave up and found other help (through family) to get my life back on track. But I am sure, for most people applying from African countries, they will not encounter many obstacles when applying for welfare.

Another thing that bothered me regarding Dutch government ... Many years later I spent a holiday in Thailand. I met my girlfriend there. We stayed together, got a daughter. When I wanted to visit The Netherlands with my girlfriend and daughter, it was a very complicated and expensive process to get my girlfriend and daughter to come on over.

While, again, people from African countries don't need papers and all to get access to the country (perhaps it's even beneficial to have no passport is such cases, as I've heard of immigrants throwing their passport away (or hiding) when moving to EU countries, perhaps to prevent background and age checks.

And I wouldn't be surprised if people from African countries would be able to get a Dutch passport in a shorter amount of time and with less effort compared to my Thai girlfriend.

[tiew9Vii]

Australia's other problem is houses are not homes to live in, they are tax efficient investments.

So you have a lack of properties pushing up rents/sale costs as people need a home to live in and will pay what they have to pay until they can't. Anyone buying has to pay more than the previous owner to ensure a capital gain after being negatively geared to avoid the economy collapsing as Australia's wealth is in property. Requiring someone else to pay more than the previous person is a definition of a pyramid scheme. Higher purchase price then requires higher rents to cover costs and homes become even more out of reach.

You will be extremely lucky to find a house within 45-60 minutes of Sydney selling for less than $1,000,000 / $650,000 usd. Those houses in the $1,000,000 range will be little more than wooden, asbestos ridden shacks, last renovated 30-40 years ago so needing big renovations. The average salary in Sydney is $80,000 according to https://www.forbes.com/advisor/au/personal-finance/average-s...

[tap-snap-or-nap]

Low quality appliances, bad insulation, badly designed homes with kitchens and bathrooms in the deepest parts of the house with the lowest quality ventilation, dodgy real estate agents and really low housing supply large especially 3BDR+ which is essential for starting or growing a family.

[defrost]

> The government is obsessed with obtaining economic growth via unrestrained population growth.

Current Government or the previous Morrison Government, and, in either case, what evidence do you have for that ?

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/populati...

(2021) https://population.gov.au/sites/population.gov.au/files/2021...

Both skirt any policy to increase or decrease population, just focus on the planning and the need to decrease pressure on city infrastructure by increasing growth in rural areas.

The ABS lays out several paths, net-zero migration and slow population decline from ~ 25 million, along with low, medium, and high growth.

[fungi]

Australia's growth in housing supply has outpaced population for over a decade.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2023/dec/12/austra...

Yes population is important, no it's not the crux of the matter.

> And the government - mostly landlord owning multi house portfolios - have zero interest in fixing it.

That 100% is. Would add that news corp is largely a portal to realestate and nine/fairfax is to domain.

[Nursie]

That article does say though -

“The housing market hasn’t kept up with the surge in migration over the past 12 to 18 months”

And

“But I think in the short term, you’re certainly seeing some growing pains because the housing market can’t really keep up.”

Certainly here in WA it seems to have gone utterly nuts in the last year and a half.

[transcriptase]

Canada is going at twice that rate and it’s objectively destroying the country.

[lazyeye]

5 Boeing 747s of people new immigrants arrive in Australia....every. single. day. And people wonder why there is a housing crisis...