Tamworth housing crisis: Property managers silent sufferers as housing stock pressure mounts

It's a problem faced by Tamworth real estate, construction and development industries as pressure mounts on housing stock, Real Estate Institute of NSW (REINSW) chief executive Tim McKibbin said.

"We are concerned about property managers because they have been through a really tough time and I think they have been overlooked by the community because in the start of COVID we had tenants who couldn't pay rent and landlords that weren't being paid," he said.

"You have to appreciate that a property manager could be managing 100 to 120 properties and a lot of them were in that position, they've gone from that pressure into the next stage where people have nowhere to live."

The median house price in Tamworth was around $355,000 in 2020, up six per cent on the previous year, according to PRD statistics.

Sales have spiked by a whopping 37.1 per cent in the last calendar year, and with about $127 million in new local projects this year, the market is projected to grow.

So much so, Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) is hosting a housing forum next week in an effort to patch up the crisis.

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There's a lot of noise around tax and negative gearing, but the solution comes down to building homes, Mr McKibbin said.

"The solution is going to be streamlining the approval process and getting more properties out there because the DA process can take months or even years to get through and that's where, in my view, we need to be focusing our energies," he said.

The DA problem comes down to perception, TRC growth and prosperity director Jacqueline O'Neill said.

"Our stats are telling us we have an average of 40 days in terms of DA approvals," she said.

"The complex builds take a bit longer if they affect the land or we need community consultation, but that's what we're committed to."

The TRC housing forum is on June 24, numbers are limited.

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