More Households Are Renters Or Hold Mortgages

The ABS released their latest research on households and wealth, with a focus on housing. It shows that a greater proportion of households now rent, and those owning property are more likely to use a mortgage. This is consistent with our own surveys and is the consequence of the high price of property, and big debt. The net result is a lower proportion of households own their property debt free. The tantamount failure of public policy over a generation and more!

The Survey of Income and Housing (SIH) collects data from households across Australia to measure levels of housing occupancy and costs and how these change over time.


In 2017–18:

• Around two thirds (66%) of Australian households owned their own home with or without a mortgage, a decrease from 68% in 2015–16.
• Almost one third (32%) of Australian households rented their home in 2017–18, an increase from 30% in 2015–16.
• Average weekly housing costs increased to $484 for owners with a mortgage (up $15 per week from $469 in 2015–16) and remained relatively stable for the other major tenure types ($53 for owners without a mortgage, $366 for renters).
• Households continued to spend 14% of their gross weekly income on housing costs (owners with a mortgage spent 16% and renters spent 20%).
• The average number of persons per household remained stable at 2.6, and the average number of bedrooms per dwelling was unchanged at 3.2.
• Applying the Canadian National Occupancy Standard for housing utilisation, almost one in twenty (4%) of Australian households required at least one additional bedroom to meet the requirements of the household, while more than three quarters (79%) of households had at least one bedroom spare.
• One in five households (20%) owned one or more residential properties other than their usual residence. Of those that owned other residential property, almost three quarters (71%) owned a single property, while one in twenty (5%) owned four or more properties.
• More than half (55%) of recent first home buyers were households with a reference person aged under 35 years.