4130.0 - Housing Occupancy and Costs, 2015-16 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 13/10/2017   
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HOUSING OCCUPANCY AND UTILISATION

The percentage of Australian households that own their home, with or without a mortgage was unchanged at 67% in 2015–16, compared with 2013–14.

The percentage of Australian households who rented their dwelling was also unchanged, compared with 2013–14, at 30% in 2015–16.

DENDOGRAM OF SELECTED HOUSEHOLD CHARACTERISTICS, 2015-16



The percentage of Australian households that own their home with or without a mortgage has declined from 71% in 1995–96 to 67% in 2015–16, and the percentage of households that were renting from a private landlord has risen from 19% in 1995–96 to 25% in 2015–16.

Graph Image for Graph 1 Housing tenure, 1995-96 to 2015-16

Annotation(s): Note: Survey not run in 1998–99, 2001–02, 2004–05, 2006–07, 2008–09, 2010-11, 2012-13 or 2014-15. Values have been interpolated for these years.

Source(s): Survey of Income and Housing


Underlying the long term fall in total home ownership was a decrease in the percentage of households that owned their dwelling outright, from 43% in 1995–96 to 30% in 2015–16 (as shown in Graph 1). Over the same period there was an increase in the percentage of households that owned their dwelling with a mortgage, from 28% in 1995–96 to 37% in 2015–16.

Numerous factors are likely to have influenced the longer term decline in the percentage of Australian households who own the home that they occupy. These factors include increased household mobility and changing household formation patterns, such as couples partnering and having children later. It is also likely that economic factors, principally the cost of purchasing a home, are having an effect on home ownership rates, especially for younger households (that is, those with a household reference person under 35 years).

More detail about housing occupancy by age of household reference person can be found in data cube 2 in the downloads section of this product, and in the feature article, 'Across the generations: twenty years of housing'. Additional data on recent home buyers is available in the feature article and in datacube 10 in the downloads section of this product.

In 2015–16, there was an average of 2.6 persons per household and 3.2 bedrooms per dwelling. These figures were not significantly different from 2013–14.

The mean number of persons per household has gradually declined from 2.7 in 1995–96 to 2.5 in 2005–06, but then began to slowly increase to 2.6 in 2015–16.

The number of bedrooms per dwelling, on the other hand, increased fairly consistently over this time, from 3.0 in 1995–96 to 3.2 in 2015–16.

Graph Image for Graph 2 Average number of persons and bedrooms, 1995-96 to 2015-16

Footnote(s): Note: Survey not run in 1998–99, 2001–02, 2004–05, 2006–07, 2008–09, 2010-11, 2012-13 or 2014-15. Values have been interpolated for these years.

Source(s): Survey of Income and Housing


Data cube 6 presents statistics on housing utilisation, based on the criteria of the Canadian National Occupancy Standard (CNOS), which determines the number of bedrooms required to adequately accommodate a dwelling's occupants.

In 2015–16, 4% of households were in need of at least one more bedroom. On the other hand, the percentage of households with some degree of spare capacity, at least one bedroom spare, was 78%.

For more information on CNOS see the ‘Explanatory Notes’ section of this publication.