Real estate, census 2022: Millions more Aussies hit hard by mortgage debt

The Aussie dream of fully owning your own home has become increasingly out of sync with how most people are actually living, shock new figures reveal.

The Aussie dream of fully owning a freestanding house has become increasingly out of sync with how most people are actually living.

The latest census showed home ownership rates have sunk well below levels seen in the 1990s, mortgage debt has skyrocketed, and more families are living in apartments than ever before.

And some Aussies don’t live in conventional dwellings at all, with many filling in census forms while in a houseboat or caravan.

The proportion of households that owned their homes outright, with no debt owing, was 31 per cent, down from 41.6 per cent in 1996, census data showed.

It coincided with a significant jump in the share of households with a mortgage, going from roughly a quarter in 1996 to 35 per cent in the 2021 census.

Close to a million new homes were built between 2016 and 2021 and a third were units.

The total number of households who owned property with a mortgage also nearly doubled over the 25-year period.

Including both outright owners and those with a mortgage, two-thirds of households owned their homes, similar to 1996 (67.8 per cent).

The increase in mortgages followed an explosion in property values last year, with PropTrack and ANU research revealing national price increases were the third highest annually in 150 years.

Real estate transaction activity was higher last year too as home seekers capitalised on record low interest rates, while lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne encouraged more families to upsize.

There were also more homes for Aussies to purchase: nearly one million new private dwellings were added to the national housing market between 2016 and 2021.

Apartments accounted for nearly a third of the increase in dwellings, according to census figures.

Last year had one of the biggest housing booms ever recorded.

The total number of private dwellings counted in the 2021 census was just under 11 million, comprised of separate houses (70 per cent), apartments (16 per cent) and townhouses (13 per cent).

More than 2.5 million people, 10.3 per cent of the population, lived in apartments. This included more than half a million people in high-rise apartments: those with nine stories or more.

The census counted many alternative dwellings, including 58,155 caravans and nearly 30,000 cabins and houseboats.

Not all homes were occupied. More than one million dwellings were empty on census night, including holiday homes and vacant investment properties.

Australia remains a nation of drivers when it comes to travelling to and from our homes.

About nine in 10 households reported having at least one vehicle, while 55.1 per cent reported having two or more vehicles.

Close to one million Australian dwellings were empty on census night.

Australian Statistician Dr David Gruen AO said the census reached people staying in hotels, those travelling on census night or working offshore.

The information collected about how people live “will help inform community planning for new housing and support existing living arrangements within the community”, Dr Gruen said.