Australia does sort of have a land constraint problem too, insofar as there aren't a lot of places in Australia where anyone would really want to live.
Agriculture in Australia accounts for about 55% of land use.[1]
About 70% of Australian land is arid or semi arid.[2]
About 87% of the population lives within 50 kilometres of the coast.[3]
About 0.5% of Australian land area is used for housing.[4]
About 50% of Australian land area is suitable for and used for grazing.[4]
Dryland cropping, dryland horticulture, irrigated pastures, irrigated cropping, irrigated horticulture, intensive horticulture and animal production, account for about 5.14% of Australia's land area.[4]
New housing development in Australia is largely done by encroaching on some of the best land for growing food, where there used to market gardens, crazing, vegetable cropping, etc, close to towns and cities, that production is being pushed further out.
New housing development is largely captured by businesses and companies that can afford to develop the land and cope with all the regulatory burden. Even in the regional areas, a block of land suitable for building a house goes for about $280,000[5] - about 5 years median income.[6] Then you'll probably want a build a house on that land, and that's going to cost you about $300,000.[7] For a total of about $550,000.
Even in the fairly average, fairly ordinary area I live in, house prices are up about 110% since about 10 years ago.
I don't know if there's some alternate timeline where housing in Australia is more evenly distributed, or if that would result in a better life for the majority of Australians, or how to get there if we think that's good idea.
Also see my other recent comment here[8] for a breakdown of ownership of the housing stock.
Thanks for motivating me to put this comment together, I had been meaning to review this data since the last time I look at it over five years ago.
1. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/products/insights/snap...
2. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/land/rangelands
3. https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/coasts/pressures/population
4. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use
5. https://hia.com.au/our-industry/newsroom/economic-research-a...
6. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-workin...
7. https://www.residentialattitudes.com.au/building-advice/the-...