Once an initial picture of your local housing market is compiled, it is important to keep this picture up-to-date. A number of variables in the Housing Kit Database are updated at least once a year. This should enable you to revise your housing market study regularly.
Data can also be collected periodically from other primary sources. For example, North Sydney Council conducts a regular survey of boarding houses. A housing question could be included in omnibus surveys undertaken by council. Sutherland Council, for example, has a comprehensive surveying strategy.
However, in order to track changes in the local housing market, it is most important to keep talking to major players and stakeholders. For example:
- Real estate agents will help identify marked changes in housing prices/rents and any changes in the vacancy rates.
- Community groups, especially community housing organisations, will be able to provide commentary on demand and supply trends in the area.
- Similarly, Indigenous Housing Organisations and Aboriginal Land Councils will be aware of changes affecting their communities.
- Interagency groups hosted by councils will often be a good source of information on people in housing need.
- Regional Organisations of Councils can often provide updates of housing market trends in their regions.
- Staff at your Local Department of Housing office may be able to provide information on broad trends in housing demand and supply in their region.
This kind of continuous monitoring will form an essential component of the monitoring and evaluation process, discussed below.
Having completed the housing market analysis you will now have all the information at hand to prepare a problem statement. If you have worked through each of the above steps you will now have a functional definition of the local housing market, an analysis of the strategic context, an analysis of the prevailing market trends (including a wide range of socio economic data) and the problems being experienced in the local housing market. Some of the key issues you will have addressed might be trends in housing prices and rentals and changes in levels of affordability among different types of households. Ideally, you will have identified the kinds of households experiencing housing stress and in what localities, and you will have a comprehensive list of all policies which impact on the functioning of the local housing market, and a good sense of who all the local stakeholders and role players are. These form the basis of the next step in the process, i.e setting local housing goals and objectives. Each set of problems and opportunities must be addressed by a specific goal and related objectives if the housing strategy is to be comprehensive in its scope.