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The number of households in the not-for-profit community housing sector over the last 10 years has more than doubled (35,667 in 2008 to 74,220 in 2016, a 108% increase). With such rapid growth the sector is becoming an even more important part of providing housing for households on low incomes.

The recent decision by the Victorian State Government to allow the maximum length of residential tenancy agreements to be longer than 5 years raises the question; when it comes to the length of rental leases, how do Australia’s States and Territories compare, and what impact does extending the maximum length have on the take up of longer-term leases?

AHURI research that examined housing supply responsiveness across Australia, reveals that approvals for lower priced houses were a small percentage of all building approvals in 2005–06 and again in 2013–14, with the vast majority of approvals (82.8% in 2013–14) in the 6th to 9th deciles (i.e. the measure of the distribution of house prices), a range covering houses prices of between $306,000 and $795,000.

Social Impact Investments (SII), which fund solutions to complex social problems including housing and homelessness policy, were worth an estimated A$2 billion in 2013 and could grow to as much as A$32 billion in the 2020s.

The 2016 Census shows a continuing fall in the proportion of Australian households who live in social housing, from a high point of over 7 per cent of all households in 1991 to 4.2 per cent in 2016 (which is the lowest proportion of households in social housing during the last 35 years).