21540 – Housing Supply Adequacy

Housing Supply Adequacy (21540) measures whether Australia’s dwelling stock is keeping pace with its population: population growth over the year less dwelling-stock growth over the year, in percentage points. Higher readings mean the population is growing faster than the stock of homes, so supply is falling behind. It sits in the Construction & Development Pipeline Analysis series (21500) beside the pipeline nodes, which read how much is being built; this node reads whether that is enough for the population it has to house.

The same measure is read for each state and territory in State Supply Adequacy (21830).

Primary metric: Node Z-Score (Z₂₁₅₄₀)

Metric typology: single-series Z-score of a growth gap. It is equivalent to the proportional change in persons per dwelling, which stood at 2.433 in March 2026.

Tier-1 sovereign statistical releases. No commercial data provider dependency exists within this node.

The chart shows the node’s reading in every quarter, measured against the 2011–2025 baseline.

At +0.3750σ (Q1 2026), the population grew slightly faster than the dwelling stock over the year to March 2026 (1.43% against 1.38%), where over 2011–2025 the stock usually grew faster, by 0.20 points on average. Position. 61.1, ranked against 55 quarters since September 2012.

The gap reached its highest, +1.11 points, in the September quarter 2023, when overseas migration resumed after the border reopened, and its lowest, −1.78 points, in the June quarter 2021, while the border was closed. It has narrowed since 2023 and has been close to zero through 2025. Across the states, supply is furthest behind population in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, and furthest ahead in the ACT, South Australia and Tasmania (State Supply Adequacy, 21830).

The other components of Construction & Development Pipeline Analysis (21500), the state counterpart and the parent series.