Industry super funds have pledged to invest billions of dollars in social and affordable housing in a proposal that could rejuvenate Albanese Government plans to address a critical shortage exacerbated by cost-of-living pressures. Source: The Guardian.
Critically, the plan prepared by IFM Investors, a major institutional investor owned by a collective of industry super funds, relies on various reforms from state and federal authorities and calls for a doubling of Labor’s $10 billion housing investment vehicle.
IFM has flagged an “indicative” investment representing 0.5 per cent of its trillion dollar-plus assets that could result in $15 billion invested by 2030 to help deliver about 100,000 social and affordable homes.
The IFM’s head of global external relations, David Whiteley, said super funds had been looking to invest in residential housing for decades but, until now, the economics did not stack up.
He said the right policy settings could deliver returns to members and address the housing shortage.
Institutional investors have traditionally shied away from social housing because the returns are usually too low to meet their financial obligations to members.
Mr Whiteley describes Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), which pays out at least $500m a year to support community housing providers with concessional loans and other sorts of payments, as a “gamechanger”.
Under the IFM plan, industry super funds would help bankroll social and affordable housing via long-term debt provided to not-for-profit housing providers, backed by HAFF subsidies.
There is a projected shortfall in social and affordable houses of almost one million homes over the next 20 years, according to the Community Housing Industry Association.
Social housing refers to government-subsidised housing while affordable homes are typically rented out at below-market rates.
FULL STORY
‘Gamechanger’: super fund billions touted as solution to housing crisis (By Jonathan Barrett, The Guardian)
