Podcast: Could the pandemic fix Australia's housing affordability crisis?

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, property prices in Australia have taken a downturn, with Melbourne leading the capital cities with a decrease of 3.5 per cent in house prices.

But could the pandemic have a lasting, long-term impact on house prices, to the point where it becomes the fix to Australia’s housing affordability crisis?

Shane Oliver, AMP Capital’s chief economist and head of investment strategy, told Domain’s Property Unpacked  that the theory isn’t far fetched.

“We’re still going through the pandemic, and we’ve seen weakness in property prices around the country. Generally speaking, prices have softened.

“I think there’s more downslides to come because quite simply we have a lot of people protected by JobKeeper, a lot of people protected by bank payment holidays – there’s almost 500,000 mortgages on payment holidays. Those protections will come to an end and expose the property market to more falls.”

Oliver explains on the podcast that the real lasting impact will come on three fronts: a long tail of relatively high unemployment, a hit to immigration rates, and working from home.

Also on this week’s episode of Property Unpacked, Domain senior research analyst Nicola Powell examines how property markets overseas have fared during the pandemic in the context of their lockdown severity.

Hear the full episode of Property Unpacked on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and everywhere else you find your podcasts.