Soaring Melbourne property prices cannot simply be curbed by building more homes, according to a new report which refutes ongoing political claims that housing affordability could be fixed through increased supply.

Although some local government areas in Melbourne have housing shortages, the majority do not, according to the Australian National University study by academics Ben Phillips and Cukkoo Joseph.

Melbourne City, which includes the CBD, Docklands, Carlton, Parkville and North Melbourne, had an oversupply of nearly 4000 homes – the fourth largest amount in the country – between 2001 and 2016.

Meanwhile, Domain Group data shows that the median house price in the area has risen 94.8 per cent in the past five years, while the median unit price has risen by 40.3 per cent.

“There’s still strong population growth in those areas, the report’s not saying that this is not the sort of housing people want,” Professor Phillips said.

“There’s just been more built that what was needed to be in terms of population growth in those areas.”

The Whittlesea-Wallan area also had a large number of unoccupied homes – with 2637 vacant.

The area includes the newly created suburbs of Wollert, Donnybrook and Woodstock.

Conversely, in the Casey-South area, where building activity has been at consistently high levels over the past five to 10 years, there was a housing shortage of 1180 dwellings.

The government has announced two new suburbs to be built in that area.

Australia had 134,000 more unoccupied homes than necessary for population growth over a 15-year period, the study shows.

Professor Phillips said the results showed creating more housing would not on its own affect prices, and a more nuanced approach was needed.

He suggested addressing low interest rates and tax breaks for property investors and owner-occupiers would also help bring house prices down.

“If the problem was a housing shortage, first of all you would find a housing shortage, and we didn’t,” he said. “It’s not to say that there is no impact from supply, but we’re suggesting that there’s a whole range of other factors.”

The report examined housing supply and demand using Australian Bureau of Statistics data from 2001 to 2016. It compared population with housing supply in each local government area.

Both state and federal governments have suggested the way to bring property prices down was to build more homes.

Earlier this year the Andrews government announced 100,000 new lots to create 17 new suburbs around Melbourne’s fringes in a bid to tackle housing affordability.

Professor Phillips said: “I think we’ve had too much emphasis, both from industry and government, on just saying ‘it’s a supply issue’,” he said. “It’s important – but it’s also lots of demand issues.”

Housing Industry Australia principal economist Tim Reardon said Melbourne’s extreme population growth warranted the building of more homes and that vacancies in new areas did not last for long.

“Houses are built and then people move into them,” Mr Reardon said.

RMIT University environment and planning professor Michael Buxton said it was important to look at the types of houses being built in new suburbs.

“It’s over-simplistic and quite dangerous just to talk about supply. We need to look at the type of dwelling, its location and who is it being aimed at,” Professor Buxton said.

He said curbing investor tax concessions was another way ensure housing was affordable and available.

“We’ve got to concentrate on demand by lowering the pressures of investor competition, and seeing housing as a way of making money instead of as places to live,” he said.

The study showed the inner Sydney area had the highest number of vacancies, followed by inner Brisbane, while inner Adelaide was the top area for housing shortages.