Census: Home ownership levels steady as mortgage numbers rise

Homeownership levels have barely moved over the past 25 years but fewer people own their property outright.

Crystal and Mark Henderson with Archie, 2, and Lily, 4, at home in Varsity Lakes on the Gold Coast. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Home is where the heart is and in Australia that could take the form of a house, apartment, caravan, cabin or houseboat.

More people are living in apartments than ever, but houses with a backyard on a block of land are still preferred by most, 2021 census data has revealed.

Overall, Australia’s housing stock totalled nearly 11 million homes in 2021, an increase of ­nearly one million new properties over the five years since the last census. Seven in 10 homes are freestanding houses, 16 per cent are apartments and 13 per cent are townhouses.

Mark and Crystal Henderson, aged 34 and 37, are among the two-thirds of households (66 per cent) who either own their home outright or with a mortgage, which is not dissimilar to ownership levels of 25 years ago.

Ms Henderson works as a nurse at Gold Coast University Hospital, which gave Mr Henderson the chance to be a part of the great resignation last year, leaving his job at a public relation firm to freelance and take up study. ­Despite this uncertainty in their lives and finances, they still feel comfortable having recently locked in a cheaper home loan rate for the next 2½ years and saving more than $200 a fortnight.

“We are in that situation in life where we’re paying for childcare, paying the mortgage, buying food … for the four of us and then ­petrol,” Mr Henderson said.

“We’ve certainly noticed everything going up.”

Ms Henderson added: “Money that you probably would have otherwise saved is a now going on the normal things like groceries or going places a bit more.”

Mortgages are becoming ­increasingly common, with the number of home loans up from about a quarter of all households (26.2 per cent) in 1996 to 35 per cent in 2021. Meanwhile, households owned outright have dropped by 10 per cent to 31 per cent over the same period.

As the cost of living weighs on households, petrol is one of the biggest concerns for the Hendersons and they likely aren’t alone, given the nation is one of drivers.

Nine in 10 households (91.3 per cent) have at least one car parked outside or in the garage, with more than half (55.1 per cent) having two or more vehicles.

The number of apartments ­nationally was bolstered over the past half decade, accounting for nearly one-third (30.9 per cent) of all new properties.

A new question in the census found that of the more than 2.5 million (10.3 per cent) Australians now living in units, more than half a million of them live in high-rise apartment towers.

Many are also choosing to live in alternate types of homes, with people filling out their census forms from caravans (58,155), cabins and houseboats (29,369).

Not all homes had their lights on for the half-decade count, with more than one million properties (1,043,776) such as holiday homes or investment houses reported as vacant.