HOUSING MOBILITY


In 2013–14, 1.26 million households (14% of all households) moved house at least once in the previous 12 months.

As shown in Graph 1, housing mobility is strongly related to the age of the household reference person. Over a third (35%) of households with a household reference person aged 15 to 34 years had spent less than 1 year in their current dwelling and 84% had spent less than 5 years. Households with a household reference person aged 65 years and over moved home less frequently with 4% of these households having spent less than 1 year in their current dwelling and 14% having spent less than 5 years.




FREQUENCY OF MOVES

As shown in Graph 2, households with a younger household reference person reported moving more frequently than other households. Some 39% of households with a reference person aged 15 to 34 years had moved three or more times in the previous 5 years.




MOBILITY AND TENURE

Renters moved more frequently than home owners. As shown in Graph 3, over a third (35%) of private renter households had spent less than 1 year in their current dwelling and 81% had spent less than 5 years. Home owners moved less frequently with 6% reporting less than 1 year in their current dwelling and 26% less than 5 years.

In comparison, 28% of home owner households and 15% of households renting from a state or territory housing authority reported living in their current dwelling for 20 years or more.




LOCALITY OF MOVE

Most moves in the previous 5 years were within the same suburb or locality (48%) or same state or territory (but outside the same suburb or locality) (42%). However, 6% of households moved from a different state or territory and 4% moved from overseas to Australia.


REASONS FOR MOVING

Households who had moved home in the previous 5 years reported the main reasons for moving were wanting a bigger or better home (17%) and to purchase their own dwelling (16%). The main reasons for moving varied by household characteristics:

• For households with a reference person aged 65 years or over, the main reasons for moving were downsizing, to be close to family and friends and for a lifestyle change.
• For households with a reference person aged 35 to 64 years, purchasing a home and wanting a bigger or better home were key reasons for moving.
• For households with a young reference person aged 15 to 24 years, the reasons for moving included family reasons such as getting married, independence, family conflict and relationship breakdown, along with wanting a bigger or better home, employment reasons and accessibility reasons. These households were also much more frequent movers.

Table 1 Recent movers by main reason for last move by age of reference person (a), 2013–14
Age of reference person	Main reason for last move	%
15 to 24 years	Other family reasons (b)	23
	Wanted bigger or better home	13
	Employment (c)	12
	Get married or live with partner	11
	Accessibility (d)	9
25 to 34 years	Wanted bigger or better home	18
	Purchased own dwelling	18
	Other family reasons (b)	12
	Employment (c)	12
	Get married or live with partner	9
35 to 64 years	Wanted bigger or better home	20
	Purchased own dwelling	18
	Employment (c)	11
	Other family reasons (b)	10
65 and over	Wanted smaller home or downsize	21
	Be close to family and friends	15
	Lifestyle change	13
(a) Households in which the reference person changed their place of usual residence in the last 5 years (b) Includes moved with family, to be independent, breakdown of marriage/relationship, family conflict, and other family reasons (c) Includes closer to work, lost job, got job, improve employment prospects, job transfer and other employment reasons (d) Includes to be near medical services, to be near education facilities and other accessibility reasons

For households renting from a state or territory housing authority, the highest reported reason for moving was due to housing allocation (37%).


BARRIERS TO MOVING FOR THOSE WHO WANTED TO MOVE

In 2013–14, 10% of households reported that they would like to move house but were unlikely to move in the next 12 months. The main reasons reported for not moving were that they could not afford to buy a new dwelling (57%), could not afford the expenses associated with moving (23%) and that the move would be too much effort (19%).