Housing Supply and Demand

Date

The projections provide the housing demand for occupied dwellings (by structure and tenure type) that would result from changing demographic and social trends (population size, births, deaths, international migration, internal migration, age structure changes and family and household formation and dissolution). These are all demand-side factors. The projections are not constrained by any supply-side factors such as availability of land, the number of vacant dwellings, construction of new dwellings and affordability. Our approach is to project housing demand on the basis of current and recent trends in demand inputs. These demand projections should then be assessed in supply terms, that is, the results from the projections of demand for housing can be compared with existing and planned supply of housing and assessments made of what corrections for demand-supply discrepancies need to be made. Where meeting demand would create supply difficulties, consideration would need to be given to how this demand is re-directed. Do the projected households maintain their dwelling preference but change their location or do they change their dwelling preference within the location. The fact that supply cannot meet housing preferences could also conceivably lead to the household not being formed at all.