"Supply, supply and supply".
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That's the solution to the gaps in the property market according to Real Estate Institute of NSW chief executive Tim McKibbin.
Speaking at the Real Estate Institute of NSW roadshow event in Albury, the first of 18 across NSW, Mr McKibbin said tight rental vacancies and rising house prices were not only influenced by demand, but factors at the planning level.
"The reality of it is, if you've got a demand that is greater than your supply, the only way that you're going to to be able to make things affordable is to increase the supply," he said.
"What has been demonstrated throughout COVID is the connection that our lives have to the property market.
"It's been really interesting to watch that, because everybody was making predictions about it and I don't think anyone got it right.
"We are arguably in the biggest property boom that we've seen."
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Mr McKibbin said there was a "double-digit rise" in property prices on the NSW-Victorian border town of Albury.
"People sometimes get very concerned about things going up and things going down, but if we're in a free market we have to be able to accept that you're going to ride these things out," he said.
"It does concern me a little bit about the level of debt that some people are taking on.
"Having said that, the interest rates are quite low and people are able to fund that. And for the foreseeable future, it's not going to change."
President Leanne Pilkington said the lack of rental properties was "really concerning".
"We've got not just a local demand ... but you've got people moving out of the cities, because they can now work regionally," she said.
"So you've got people moving out of probably higher-priced properties into the regions, they've got more money to spend and they are pricing some of the locals out of the market.
"People looking for property in Australia is up by 57 per cent for searches from the U.S.
"So it'll be very interesting to see, once the vaccines are out once the borders are open again, the level of interest in Australia from overseas I think is going to be phenomenal."
Ms Pilkington said there was conversation in NSW parliament about getting rid of stamp duty and implementing a property tax.
"The government would argue that that's going to increase transactions by about 50 per cent," she said.
"We haven't seen the modelling on that, so we can't comment on whether that's real or it's not, but still, where are the houses coming from?"
Albury MP Justin Clancy met with REINSW representatives and said from the city to smaller areas like Burrumbuttock, there was demand.
"If we as a region aren't able to capture the demand that's there at the moment, then we're going to lose that opportunity to other areas," he said.
Mr Clancy said the state government was looking at opportunities to speed up planning processes at the residential level.
"We're seeing supply chain issues all the way through, in terms of town planners and having the capacity within local governments for planning and the role of state in that regard is, how do we enable that?" he said.
Mr Tim McKibbin said "nobody wants to have bad developments" but planning processes were onerous.
"Forty per cent of what a consumer pays for a new property is taxes and charges," he said.
"It seems to me on occasions the development process is designed to make people give up."