Melbourne is the only Australian city that will have developed a build-to-rent market of scale by 2030, as only it has enough suitable sites to permit the development of sufficient institutionally developed and owned housing, veteran planner Brian Haratsis says.

New estimates by the Macroplan executive chairman paint a more subdued picture of the size of the growing sector, with just 52,500 completed BTR homes nationally by 2030, of which 30,000 would be in Melbourne.

“Melbourne could be the first location in Australia with a competitive BTR market,” Mr Haratsis said.

“BTR is likely to be an insignificant player in all jurisdictions, except possibly Melbourne until at least 2030.”

The forecasts by Mr Haratsis – predicting a total stock by 2030 close to half the 100,000 dwellings of the Oxford Economics Australia forecast – indicate that despite the growing enthusiasm for BTR, it is unlikely to become a tradeable asset class this decade, with the possible exception of Melbourne.

Read the full article here at the afr – full article.