Asian investment in residential real estate is not as big a problem as many believe.
Renewed concerns over foreign investment in housing have been raised against the backdrop of sharply rising house prices in some major cities and people believing they are being squeezed out in the bidding process.
But a parliamentary hearing on Friday was told it was more a problem of a lack of housing stock rather any particular investor.
"I think quite a lot of the commentary is based upon either lack of knowledge of the facts or an inadvertent misinterpretation of the facts," Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) chairman Brian Wilson told the House of Representatives economics committee.
Australia has about nine million private dwellings.
Mr Wilson said there are between 500,000 and 600,000 sales in residential property each year of which 20,000 might be brought to the attention of the FIRB.
He reminded the hearing that about one in 10 citizens or permanent residents had at least one Asian parent and had as much right as anyone to buy a property.
He said there were not the same concerns about people of Greek and Italian extraction buying a home.
Submissions to the hearing suggested there should be better data in determining the scale of foreign ownership in Australian housing.
"Information is good ... information is not cost-free," Mr Wilson said.
FIRB has eight staff to deal with foreign investment in residential property.
To gain a greater degree of certainty of foreign ownership among the 500,000 sales each year would probably need 80 full-time staff.
Mr Wilson questioned whether the government would see this as a worthwhile use of resources.
Housing Industry Association chief economist Harley Dale told the hearing new home building was beneficial to employment because its flowed through to other sectors such as manufacturers and suppliers.
Foreign investment plays an important role in that expansion of Australia's housing stock.
"There are a larger volume of new dwellings being built in Australia now than would be the case if current (foreign investment) policy settings were more restrictive," Dr Dale said.
Even so, Master Builders Australia's Brent Davies said there was a "serious gap" between the underlying demand for housing - about 180,000 units a year - and the 145,000 being built.
It would take 220,000 units a year to narrow that gap.
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