QUEENSLAND’S housing crisis is no longer just about building more homes.
It is also about how the homes we already have are being used. That is where the right sizing debate comes in.
Across Australia, millions of bedrooms sit unused, and Queensland is part of that story.
Research shows Greater Brisbane has one of the highest rates of underutilised housing among the capital cities, with many homes occupied by only one or two people despite having three or more bedrooms.
At the same time, more Queenslanders are facing rental stress, delayed home ownership, or moving back in with family because suitable housing is out of reach.
This is not about blaming older homeowners. People have every right to stay in the homes they worked hard for.
Spare rooms are often used for grandchildren, home offices, carers, hobbies, or visiting family.
But it does highlight a mismatch between household size and the type of housing available.
That is why housing experts are now looking at two very different solutions, incentives or penalties.
In April, economist Michael Blythe, former Chief Economist of the Commonwealth Bank and now economist in residence at Downsizer, proposed a Last Homebuyer Scheme to help older Australians right size voluntarily and free up larger homes for growing families.
“It could be pretty much identical to a first homebuyer scheme,” Mr Blythe said.
His idea is not about forcing anyone out of their home. It is about removing barriers such as stamp duty, moving costs, and the lack of suitable housing options.
For many older Queenslanders, they would move if there were better choices close to transport, health care, shops, and community networks.
The second idea is the controversial spare bedroom tax, floated separately during the national economic reform debate by property research group Cotality, formerly CoreLogic, through Head of Research Eliza Owen.
Ms Owen argued that governments could make it “more expensive to have more housing than you need and cheaper to live in smaller housing”.
To be clear, there is no spare bedroom tax in Queensland or anywhere in Australia. It remains a policy discussion only. The concept would involve higher rates, land tax, or another levy on homes deemed larger than a household needs, with the aim of encouraging downsizing. But Queenslanders know penalties without alternatives rarely work.
If governments genuinely want to unlock housing, the smarter path is incentives. That means stamp duty relief for downsizers, easier granny flat approvals, support for safe home share models, and more well-designed townhouses and apartments in the right locations.
Queensland still needs significant new housing supply, faster approvals, and better planning. The real opportunity is balance.
Respect people’s property rights. Create attractive choices. Remove barriers to moving. Build more homes. Use every tool available to tackle one of Queensland’s biggest challenges, making sure more people can access the right home, in the right place, at the right time.
