• Summary
• Downloads
• Explanatory Notes
• Related Information
• Past Releases

NOTES


ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION

This publication presents data from the Survey of Income and Housing (SIH) on Australian housing occupancy and costs, and relates these to characteristics of occupants and dwellings such as tenure, family composition of household, dwelling structure, age, income and principal source of income. It also includes value of dwelling estimates, and information on recent home buyers.

The publication includes a feature article on first home buyers in Australia. Appendix 2 details the collection of additional housing topics in the 2007-08 SIH and foreshadows the release, in November 2009, of a new publication covering these topics - Housing Mobility and Conditions, Australia, 2007-08 (cat. no. 4130.0.55.002).


CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

Changes in this issue which have impacted on the data include:

• a smaller final sample of 9,345 households in 2007-08, compared with 9,961 households in 2005-06.
• the inclusion of a table on income unit tenure, following the collection of person and income unit tenure data for the first time since the 2002-03 SIH.
• the inclusion of bonuses, irregular overtime, termination payments, inter-household transfers and non-cash benefits in income estimates for 2003-04, 2005-06 and 2007-08. For more information on improvements to the collection of income statistics see Appendix 4 of Household Income and Income Distribution, Australia, 2007-08 (cat. no. 6523.0).
• the use of population and household benchmarks based on the 2006 Census. In 2005-06 these benchmarks were based on the 2001 Census. For further information see paragraphs 58 to 66 of the Explanatory Notes.
• the use of additional information about tenure within the household to influence the selection of the household reference person, consistent with the treatment used prior to the 2003-04 SIH.