There's a mismatch in Australia’s housing market with around 12 million bedrooms sitting empty. At the same time as, countless Australians are looking for somewhere to live. But it's not as simple as moving people into the right-sized homes because in many cases, there aren't any.
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00:00In the midst of a housing crisis, Australia has millions of empty bedrooms.
00:06On the surface, it seems like a potential solution.
00:10Five of those bedrooms are in Tony and Julie Papineau's home, which shows reality isn't
00:14that simple.
00:15They've lived here about 20 minutes from the Perth CBD for the last four decades, but now
00:22it's too big.
00:23This is one of our guest rooms as well, and I've turned it into my drum room because that's
00:29my hobby.
00:30The problem is getting people like us out of here.
00:34Where do we go?
00:35We haven't got anywhere that compares, you know, this location is fantastic.
00:40Across the nation, Winthrop is one of the suburbs with the most spare capacity.
00:44In other words, homes that are too big.
00:47About 54% of WA's homes have more than one spare room.
00:51Queensland comes in next at 48%.
00:54Across the country, the average is 45%, equating to about 5 million spare rooms.
01:01But there are only 300,000 households who say they need more space.
01:06What we need is an approach, a strategic approach, where there's some large scale redevelopment
01:11where you can create precincts with good amenities that can cater for the increase in traffic.
01:17That's tricky enough in an established suburb, and even harder right now.
01:22Many apartment projects just aren't feasible due to rising construction costs and skill
01:27shortages.
01:28The lesson is to deliver more housing choice.
01:31We need a much greater diversity of housing types.
01:36We need three bedroom houses, we need townhouses, terrace houses, as well as your apartments,
01:41both low and high rise.
01:43In the meantime, Tony and Julie will keep waiting for a home closer to their needs.
01:48I enjoy my drums here.
01:49I've got an electronic kit, I've got an acoustic kit.
01:52We've made use of the rooms, but in a different way.
01:56As governments try to one-pick decades of development, which has left Australia with
02:00too many spare rooms.