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Kooky
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About Kooky and Shaka →Australia finished the second year of its National Housing Accord about 124,000 homes behind the pace the target requires, the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) said in a media release on Thursday 8 October 2026. The developers' body counts 355,820 homes delivered since the Accord began, against the 480,000 that would have kept the country on track.
The Accord sets a target of 1.2 million homes in five years, counted from July 2024 and running to mid-2029. Two of those five years are now complete, and the June quarter 2026 figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), dated 7 October, closed the books on the second. They gave the industry bodies what they needed to take stock, and each did so in its own way.
That is why more than one number is circulating this week. The UDIA puts the gap at about 124,000 homes. The Housing Industry Association (HIA) puts it at 94,980. Master Builders Australia has a forecast of its own for the end of the period. And in New South Wales, the state government has published a year of completions that it describes as the highest in five years. Each figure is set out below with its source, because they do not measure the same thing.
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building Activity, June quarter 2026, national figures.
What the UDIA counted
The UDIA's arithmetic starts from the target itself. A total of 1.2 million homes over five years works out at 240,000 a year, or 60,000 a quarter. Two years at that rate gives the 480,000 the institute uses as its yardstick.
Related readDubai Islands gets a shoreline contract and a new Bay Estate communityAgainst it, the UDIA counts 355,820 homes delivered over the Accord's first two years. The difference is 124,180, which the institute rounds to about 124,000. Put another way, the country has built roughly 74 per cent of what the pace required.
The most recent quarter shows the same distance. The UDIA cites 47,170 homes completed nationally in the June quarter 2026, drawing on ABS data; the ABS seasonally adjusted figure is 47,168. Set beside the 60,000 a quarter that the target implies, that is about 12,800 short in three months. The institute's own headline nonetheless says that completions are improving. Its message is that the direction is right while the speed is not.
The Australian Associated Press (AAP), in a story on 7 October, reported the same count unrounded: 355,817 completions in two years and a shortfall of 124,183. The three-home difference from the UDIA's rounded figures changes nothing in the picture.
What the count means for the remaining three years follows from simple subtraction. If 355,820 homes have been delivered, 844,180 are left to build before mid-2029. That is about 281,400 a year, when the first two years averaged 177,910.
Why the HIA's number is smaller
The HIA reads the first two years differently. Its managing director, Jocelyn Martin, said the country was 94,980 dwellings behind the 1.2 million target after two full years, according to the ABC's business live blog of 7 October.
That is about 29,000 fewer than the UDIA's gap. The reports do not set out the method behind the HIA figure, and it would be wrong to treat one of the two numbers as a correction of the other. They are two counts by two bodies, published in the same week, and they should be quoted with the name of the body attached.
Related readIs a Dubai off-plan launch authorised? What a broker can verifyMortgage Professional Australia, a trade publication, reported on 9 October that the HIA counts 60,000 homes short in the Accord's first year and nearly 95,000 behind after two. It describes that as roughly 130 homes a day, which matches the HIA's 94,980 spread across two years. On those figures, the gap widened by about 35,000 homes in the second year, after 60,000 in the first.
The HIA also puts a price on its count. According to the ABC, Ms Martin said the 94,980 dwellings equal A$45 billion in lost economic activity. The association estimates A$2.8 billion in stamp duty and A$8.2 billion in goods and services tax that were not collected as a result, a combined A$11 billion that it calls a black hole. These are the HIA's own estimates of what the missing homes would have generated, not official revenue figures.
The two shortfall figures are not interchangeable
The UDIA's 124,000 and the HIA's 94,980 both describe the Accord's first two years, but they come from different counts. Neither replaces the other, and their midpoint means nothing.
Three forecasts for mid-2029
The bodies differ more widely on where the Accord will end than on where it stands today.
The UDIA projects that, on the current trajectory, the shortfall will grow to around 310,000 homes by the end of the Accord. Master Builders Australia forecasts a shortfall of 262,000, according to AAP. The HIA forecasts that the target will be missed by 186,000 homes, according to Mortgage Professional Australia.
Subtracting each forecast from the 1.2 million target shows how far apart they are. The UDIA's projection implies about 890,000 homes built by mid-2029, Master Builders Australia's about 938,000 and the HIA's about 1,014,000. The most cautious and the least cautious of the three are 124,000 homes apart.
Related readMelbourne's Preston Market plan: 900 apartments, eight towers| Body | Behind after two years | Forecast shortfall, mid-2029 |
|---|---|---|
| UDIA | About 124,000 | Around 310,000 |
| Master Builders Australia | Not given | 262,000 |
| HIA | 94,980 | 186,000 |
UDIA media release, 8 October 2026; Master Builders Australia as reported by AAP, 7 October; HIA as reported by the ABC, 7 October, and Mortgage Professional Australia, 9 October.
All three are forecasts, and all three assume something about how building will go over the next three years. None of them is an official projection, and none says the target will be met.
What the industry says is holding homes back
The bodies agree more readily on causes than on counts, although each stresses its own.
The UDIA points to money. Its industry estimate is that the financing capacity for new projects and the spending power of buyers have each been eroded by about 10 per cent.
"Maintaining momentum will require the right conditions to support project feasibility," said Oscar Stanley, the UDIA's national president, in the release. He called on the Federal Government to bring forward incentive payments immediately, and for a tax system that rewards investment in housing supply.
The HIA points to labour. Its Trades Report, published in July, found that 83,000 additional skilled tradespeople are needed, according to the ABC.
Master Builders Australia points to the cumulative weight of policy on small firms. Its chief executive, Denita Wawn, was quoted by AAP saying that a series of recent policy decisions had weighed on small building businesses in particular.
The pipeline figures give some context for these arguments. The ABS counted 52,201 homes commenced in the June quarter 2026, more than the 47,168 completed, and 248,733 under construction at the end of it. Approvals stood at 16,953 dwellings in August 2026, in an ABS release of 30 September headed by a 6.1 per cent fall in total dwelling approvals for the month.
New South Wales reports its best year in five
One state had a more cheerful story to tell. The New South Wales Government said in a ministerial release on Wednesday 7 October that 49,545 homes were completed in the state in 2025-26, up 16 per cent on 2024-25 and the highest annual total since 2020-21. National completions rose 2.8 per cent over the same period, the release says.
Related readMinneapolis apartment permits fell to 300 units as rents hit a highThe momentum was strongest at the end of the year. June quarter completions in New South Wales were more than 40 per cent higher than in the same quarter a year earlier, according to the state government. The ABS seasonally adjusted figure for that quarter is 13,332 completions in the state, which is about 28 per cent of the national 47,168.
Commencements reached 51,807 in 2025-26, up more than 10 per cent on the year before and the highest in four years. The release adds that New South Wales has more homes under construction than any other state or territory. For the June quarter alone, the ABS seasonally adjusted count of commencements in the state is 11,252, about 22 per cent of the national figure.
The government presents the result as its planning changes at work. It counts more than 150,000 homes completed since April 2023 and more than 70 state-led rezonings. The Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully, set the year against what he said was the previous government's forecast of 36,000 homes a year. That comparison is the minister's own.
The programmes behind the state's figures
The ministerial release names three programmes, each with its own number attached by the government.
The Transport Oriented Development programme is credited with more than 31,000 homes unlocked. The Low and Mid-Rise policy is expected to deliver 112,000 homes in five years. A rezoning at Woollahra and Edgecliff allows for up to 9,400 homes and 1,000 jobs.
These are planning capacities and expectations, not completions. The state's 49,545 completions and the national shortfall are therefore not in contradiction: one state can post its best year in five while the country as a whole runs behind the Accord's pace.
Related readBuying off the plan in New South Wales: what the law gives a buyerSmaller public projects sit alongside the large programmes. On 9 October the state government said Homes NSW plans 15 social homes, 13 with one bedroom and two with two bedrooms, on a Woolloomooloo site that has stood vacant since a redevelopment failed in 1989. "This site has sat vacant for too long," said Rose Jackson, the Minister for Housing and Homelessness, in that release.
What comes next
The Accord has three years left to run, to mid-2029. On the UDIA's count, closing the gap would mean building about 281,400 homes a year from here, against an average of 177,910 so far.
The 248,733 homes under construction at the end of June are the stock from which coming completions will be drawn, and the quarterly ABS Building Activity release will show how quickly they are finished. The monthly approvals figures will show what is entering the pipeline behind them.
On the policy side, the UDIA's requests are on the table: incentive payments brought forward and tax settings that favour investment in supply. The sources consulted report no response to them so far.
In New South Wales, the Woolloomooloo proposal has dates attached. A community survey closes on 30 October 2026, and a development application is due to go to the City of Sydney in December.
For anyone who sells, finances or buys new homes, the practical point of the week is about reading numbers. A shortfall figure is only useful with its author and its scope beside it: 124,000 is the UDIA's count of two years, 94,980 is the HIA's, and 310,000, 262,000 and 186,000 are three separate views of mid-2029.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
