House shortage: Time to think inside the box
A state premier has proposed new laws with the goal of making building and financing modular homes easier.
THE government’s plans to tackle the housing supply crisis with modular homes have further momentum after the premier revealed plans for a financing guarantee.
Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff, who governs in a minority, said legislation to set up a modular housing finance guarantee would be brought before parliament in August.
“Tasmania does not have a housing demand problem. We have a housing supply problem,” he told a CEDA business lunch on Wednesday.
“Embracing faster, lower‑cost construction methods are not optional.
“It is essential to boost housing supply, ease pressure on costs and ensure more Tasmanians can access secure and affordable housing.”
The scheme will guarantee construction loans while homes are being built off-site, where limited collateral has historically restricted lending, Mr Rockliff said.
The guarantee will decrease as construction progresses and will cease once homes are installed and become standard mortgage security.
The initiative, which Mr Rockliff says will be discussed with industry and lenders in the coming months, aims to boost housing supply.
It comes after the federal government in May announced $40 million would be spent on trialling a new open-source prefabricated housing system across Australia.
The 2026 National Housing Supply and Affordability Council report found that for decades, Australia’s housing system has not kept up with demand.
Build times have increased by 40 per cent since the COVID-19 pandemic, and construction costs have surged 88 per cent since 2014/15, a recent CEDA report found.
Mr Rockliff’s announcement comes one day after a KPMG review criticised the state government for a lack of clarity about its progress in delivering the pledged 10,000 homes by 2032.
There was no agreed-upon, widely accepted definition of what counts as a home, the report found.
An April update of the performance of Homes Tasmania, which is being disbanded, said the government had completed 4854 homes.
More than 2200 were social housing or supported accommodation. Included in the total figure were 149 lots of land and 1244 homes purchased with the government’s shared equity scheme.
