Boards, executives concerned over lack of progress on housing affordability

The nation’s housing crisis has emerged as the biggest social issue keeping Australian business leaders up at night.

KPMG’s annual survey of more than 300 C-suite executives and board members, released on Monday, revealed almost half believed the lack of meaningful progress on housing affordability was not just a challenge facing the country, but also a danger to businesses.

“[There’s] this recognition within businesses that their workforce is finding housing affordability even more of a problem, which then starts to limit individuals choosing places to work,” said Brendan Rynne, KPMG’s chief economist.

“It makes it harder for people to work out where to live, how to travel to work. Working from home has been helpful in resolving some of those issues, but not everyone can do that.

“And therefore, what businesses are now recognising … it’s not only getting people with the right skills to come and work for them, but also getting those people with the skills being prepared to work for them where their accommodation is so far away, or their accommodation is challenging for them to be part of the workforce.”

Housing affordability shot to first place in KPMG’s Keeping us up at night social challenges list, up from fifth last year. Geopolitical tensions, which was identified as the No.1 issue in 2024, fell to third spot this year.

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Australian housing is among the most expensive in the world. The International Monetary Fund said before Christmas that state stamp duties should be abolished, more workers should be deployed to the housing sector, and the easing of zoning rules should be placed on the agenda to tackle “Australia’s housing affordability crisis”.

Alongside the social issue of housing affordability, the survey revealed the biggest challenge facing businesses directly is digital transformation, with 53 per cent of business leaders identifying it as their top issue. This was followed by cybersecurity (43 per cent), controlling costs in an inflationary environment (39 per cent), new technologies such as artificial intelligence (39 per cent), and regulation (38 per cent).