As President of the Real Estate Institute of Australia, I am often asked what is happening in the Australian property market.

The honest answer is there is no single Australian property market. There are thousands, divided by location, price, property type, employment and local confidence. Darwin is certainly not taking its instructions from the southern capitals.

Too much of Australia’s housing debate is conducted as though the whole country were one suburb or a price movement in Sydney becomes a “national housing crisis”, and a policy designed for inner Brisbane is applied, with minimal adjustment, to remote Territory communities. National policy is necessary, but nationally uniform thinking is not.

I want to explain where Australia’s housing system stands, outline what industry is advocating for, and consider what it means for the Territory. My proposition: housing is essential economic infrastructure, not merely an asset class or a social policy responsibility. It is what lets a community attract workers, support families, deliver major projects and sustain growth and nowhere more apparent than here in the Territory.

Australia’s housing system is under profound pressure: strong demand, insufficient supply, higher construction costs, constrained capacity and elevated interest rates. The National Housing Accord targeted 1.2 million new homes over five years; the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council now forecasts around 980,000. This is a shortfall of roughly 220,000, unlikely to close until September 2030. That means households competing for too few rentals, young Australians staying home longer, key workers unable to live near the communities they serve, and Australians stuck on social housing waiting lists.

The affordability numbers are sobering. Rent on a new lease consumes around a third of median household income, a deposit takes more than 11 years to save, and a new mortgage consumes close to 46 per cent of income. This shapes whether people change jobs, move, start families or stay put.

National conditions are also shifting. Housing finance and commencements softened this year, though approvals have since improved. I’d be cautious calling this a national crash. Supply remains constrained and vacancies extraordinarily low even as activity slows. Australia still needs considerably more housing even as the immediate market softens.

The 2026–27 Federal Budget and the Homes for Australia Plan, a described $47 billion package, bring housing programs into a single framework, and REIA welcomes elements: $2 billion more for enabling infrastructure, $500 million reserved for regional Australia, and investment across the continuum from homelessness to home ownership. That approach is right, but spending alone won’t solve the problem. Between announcement and a completed home sit land release, zoning, approvals, finance, construction capacity and labour. Governments should be judged on completed homes, not announcements. They need to be held to account.

REIA has also raised concerns about changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. We understand the goal of helping aspiring buyers compete, but an established dwelling that moves from rental to owner-occupier disappears from the rental stock. This is a real risk with the national vacancy rate around 1.7 per cent. Modelling put the potential rent impact at up to $9 a week over four years, revised past $10 once SMSF changes are factored in. Housing policy cannot be a contest between first home buyers and investors, or tenants and rental providers. The goal must be more homes, not a reshuffled from an inadequate pool. My test: will a proposal produce more appropriate homes than would otherwise exist? If not, it just changes who wins.

Nationally, industry’s agenda rests on five principles: supply, backed by ambitious targets and transparent reporting on approvals, commencements and completions; enabling infrastructure as a precondition for growth, not an afterthought; productivity, through faster approvals and construction innovation (40 cents of every dollar spent on a new home already goes to government tax or levies); stable investment, via predictable tax and regulatory settings, including examining a stamp duty replacement, since it penalises mobility; and balance, recognising that renters, rental providers, first home buyers, social housing tenants, and remote and First Nations communities all have connected needs. Policy fails when it picks a winner and a villain.

The Territory is not a smaller version of an east-coast market. It’s unique. Its geography over a huge footprint, smaller population, climate and construction market are distinct, spanning Darwin, Palmerston, regional centres of Alice Springs and Katherine, remote communities and homelands. Yet it has real advantages. Darwin remains one of Australia’s more affordable capitals, rental yields continue to attract investors, and prices have grown even as southern markets soften, against a backdrop of major projects and energy investment.

But opportunity doesn’t automatically produce housing. Major projects create jobs; those workers need homes, and so do the teachers, nurses, police and tradespeople who support them. When supply is too low, growth works against itself: rents rise, workers decline offers, and the affordability advantage that attracted people erodes.

That’s why I strongly support the premise of the new Northern Territory Government’s NT Housing Strategy: housing listed as essential economic infrastructure, alongside transport, energy and water. Its seven pillars of ownership pathways, serviced land, planning reform, construction capacity, affordable rental, social housing and remote community partnership, reflect the task’s complexity, and its value will lie in coordination and delivery.

I see three opportunities: connect housing delivery to project planning, assessing workforce housing needs before contracts are signed; build a housing mix suited to the Territory. This might be apartments, townhouses, build-to-rent and climate-adapted modular construction, backed by a pipeline that gives builders confidence to invest and preserve the Territory’s affordability while it’s still possible, since affordability is far easier to protect than to recover.

Agents and property managers see housing pressure first. They are at the frontline of multiplying rental applications, falling listings, buyers withdrawing on finance and that intelligence should inform policy. It’s real time reporting not years in modelling.

I remain optimistic for the Territory housing market, for three reasons: housing is now recognised as central to productivity and social cohesion, not a secondary issue. There’s growing alignment that Australia cannot tax, subsidise or regulate its way out of a physical shortage, we must build. And the Territory can act before today’s pressures become tomorrow’s permanent disadvantage, with strong demand, relative affordability and a new whole-of-system strategy already in place. You know the projects and regions. They need to be matched with housing to attract workers and population growth.

But optimism must be matched by urgency. A strategy or a budget announcement doesn’t house anyone. People are housed when land is serviced, approvals issued, finance secured and homes completed. Behind every statistic is a human decision: a nurse deciding whether to move to the Northern Territory, a young Territorian deciding whether their future is here in and becoming a first homebuyer, a family wondering if they’ll find an affordable rental. Housing determines whether people can say yes and commit.

If government, industry and community work together to deliver stable investment, serviced land, construction capacity and a protected rental market, the Territory can convert its growth into lasting prosperity. Its future need not be defined by shortage; it can be defined by confidence, delivery and urgency that housing is critical infrastructure to build the homes future Territorians will need. TQ