12:00a.m. 1st July 2008

| By Carolyn Tucker

About 21,400 new homes will be needed on the Sunshine Coast in the next five years and at the current rate of construction, supply will fall short of demand.

That’s the view of the Housing Industry Association which says the findings of its latest research paint a grim picture for future affordability.

The HIA said it expected about 3550 homes to be built on the Coast this year - roughly 600 fewer than were needed.

HIA’s chief executive of policy, Chris Lamont said conditions in Queensland’s South East corner were shaping up to create ‘the perfect storm’, with continued rapid growth, pent up demand for housing and a lack of trade labour to meet it.

“There will be further price pressures in that sector and that’s bad news for affordability,” Mr Lamont said.

“The migration numbers are actually alarming and they are not being matched by residential construction.

“We are asking the government to look at targeted migration and actively recruiting tradespeople.

“It’s a short-term solution but a necessary one because at the moment we are just not going to get there.”

Mr Lamont said it was a similar story in growth hotspots around the nation, where a total of a million new homes would be needed in the next five years.

He said the government must tackle the problem of labour shortages to ensure growing competition for housing did not continue to force prices up and begin to impact on community attitudes towards new arrivals.

Mr Lamont said the state government’s recently announced plans to fast track land releases on 17 greenfield sites in the South East corner, including four on the Sunshine Coast, would not address the shortfall in production.

A recent survey commissioned by the Local Government Association has found the government’s announcement also failed to impress residents in the region.

Premier Anna Bligh said the release of land for new estates would help ease the affordability crisis but most of the 400 households questioned in the survey were sceptical.

Only 23.2% of people thought the shortage of land for new housing estates was a “very significant” factor in housing affordability, while 45.3% nominated interest rates as the key factor.

Respondents also took a dim view of developers with 89% saying a reduction in government charges for developers would only increase their profits.