CommSec research: Victorian house sizes hit seven-year high as kids stay home longer
Victorian’s houses are getting bigger and better, defying a home shrinkage trend across the rest of the nation. So why, despite soaring house prices, are we leaning towards bigger homes and apartments?
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Victorian houses are the second biggest in the nation, and they’re getting bigger.
The state is defying a national shrinking tend, with the typical size of houses being built here now at a 246sq m seven-year high – narrowly losing the title of Australia’s biggest houses to Canberra’s 250sq m average.
The figures were revealed in CommSec’s Home Size Trends Report which analysed Australian Bureau of Statistics data showing that nationwide houses are the smallest they have been in 17 years.
Chief economist Craig James said Victoria’s rising house sizes bucked the trend, and could be an early indication households were also starting to expand through migrant families bringing multigenerational living to the suburbs or grown up kids staying at home longer.
Apartment, unit and townhouse sizes also surged to a peak, averaging more than 140sq m for the first time since 2010.
Bigger house sizes as well as higher standards had also contributed to rents and prices rising “sharply in recent years” before a recent correction, making it harder for young Victorian’s to leave home, Mr James said.
“You have these trends now that Gen Ys and Millennials do have greater expectations for what is in the homes than perhaps the Baby Boomers did in the 70s and 80s … it was a much more basic structure than we have today,” he said.
Latest CoreLogic figures show Melbourne’s median house price is $700,000. In 2009 it was just $385,000.
A preference among younger generations for more indoor space, and to avoid mowing the lawn on the weekend were also a factor to rising dwelling sizes.
Urban Development Institute of Australia Victorian chief executive Danni Hunter said larger houses being built reflected upsizes for existing property owners, with the average Victorian’s ability to buy a home at a 10-year low.
“It’s likely many homebuyers, particularly those purchasing houses, are long-term homeowners who can afford a larger house,” Ms Hunter said.
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More Melbourne residents moving out to regional areas to build a big house would also be a factor, she said.
Adam Inglis and Anna Hornauer along with three-year-old golden retriever, Jedi, paid close to $1 million for their first home in Bentleigh East earlier this year.
A key part of the attraction was the 562sq m block, which would allow them room to expand the currently about 140sq m house built in the 1960s, Mr Inglis said.
“We bought it for what we will be able to do with it,” he said.