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Hobart real estate is booming right now, with year on year growth higher than every other capital, except for Darwin. But for all the winners, there’s lots of losers, many of whom now have no hope of buying and little chance of finding a rental.

Indeed real estate in Hobart has turned into the hunger games where homes regularly attract multiple cash offers and sell for way above expectations. So it’s no wonder that records are being smashed. For example a modest seaside shack in Dodges Ferry sold recently for almost a million dollars.

And the situation is no better for renters with scarce properties and rents climbing way beyond what average wage earners can afford. And this is wrong because a home is a basic human right, without which, it’s near on impossible to hold down a job or send the kids to school.

But all of these problems can be fixed if governments focus on more social housing, on rent to buy, on improved grants and low-interest loans for first home buyers, and returning AirBNB to its original model of locals renting out spare rooms and granny flats. We also need tax reform, increased rent assistance and more crisis and supported accommodation. Now sure this will cost a lot of money, but if we in one of the richest countries in the world can’t afford it then no one can.