Housing serviceability

Having financial security and access to housing

Metric

Proportion of housing costs to household gross income, by tenure type

Why this matters

Beyond homelessness, another way of measuring housing stress is serviceability. A range of data is useful for measuring housing serviceability as people rent, buy or access housing in a variety of ways.

Progress

Recently, in the year to the June quarter 2024, rental prices rose by 7.3%, following a 15 year peak in the March quarter (7.8%). Rental price increases have become more common and larger on average, particularly for the 2–3% of properties each month that have a change in tenants.

Over the same period, mortgage interest charges rose by 26.5%, though the rate of increase has declined from its peak of 91.6% in the June 2023 quarter. Mortgage interest charges remained elevated, compared to recent years, as some fixed rate loans continued to rollover into higher variable rate loans.

Additional supplementary data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey shows between 2020 and 2022, mortgage/rent costs as a proportion of household gross income has:

remained similar for households renting from private landlords (from 17.8% to 18.2%)
remained similar for households renting from a state or territory housing authority (from 18.1% to 18.9%)
remained similar for owners with a mortgage (from 13.3% to 13.2%).

Data from the Survey of Income and Housing shows between 2002-03 and 2019-20, housing costs as a proportion of household gross income has:

remained similar for households renting from private landlords (from 19.6% to 20.2%)
increased for households renting from a state or territory housing authority (from 18.2% to 19.5%)
decreased for owners with a mortgage (from 17.0% to 15.5%)
remained similar for owners without mortgage (from 2.7% to 3.0%).

Housing costs as a proportion of household gross income, by tenure type
	Owner - without mortgage (%)	Owner - with mortgage (%)	Renter - private landlord (%)	Renter - state or territory housing authority (%)	All households (%)
2002–03	2.7	17.0	19.6	18.2	12.8
2003–04	2.7	18.4	18.6	19.4	13.6
2005–06	2.5	19.0	18.9	17.5	13.8
2007–08	2.3	17.9	17.7	18.9	13.1
2009–10	2.6	18.1	20.0	19.2	14.1
2011–12	2.7	17.6	20.3	19.4	14.3
2013–14	2.8	16.3	20.0	21.0	13.6
2015–16	2.9	16.4	20.5	21.3	13.8
2017–18	3.0	15.9	20.2	22.5	13.9
2019–20	3.0	15.5	20.2	19.5	13.6

Housing costs as a proportion of household gross income, by tenure type

["","Owner - without mortgage","Owner - with mortgage","Renter - private landlord","Renter - state or territory housing authority","All households"]

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Data Source

ABS Housing Occupancy and Costs, Table 1.2

Mortgage/rent costs as a proportion of household gross income, by tenure type (a)
	Owner - with mortgage (%)	Renter - private landlord (%)	Renter - state or territory housing authority (%)
2002	11.8	18.8	15.7
2003	12.4	18.5	14.8
2004	13.4	17.9	16.0
2005	13.4	17.4	16.8
2006	14.7	17.4	16.7
2007	15.1	17.9	16.8
2008	16.5	18.0	16.9
2009	14.7	18.7	16.4
2010	15.4	19.1	15.2
2011	15.9	20.0	16.5
2012	15.2	20.1	16.6
2013	14.5	19.1	16.6
2014	14.7	19.5	16.3
2015	14.1	19.2	17.0
2016	14.3	19.2	19.7
2017	14.2	19.8	19.4
2018	14.5	19.4	20.0
2019	13.6	19.1	19.5
2020	13.3	17.8	18.1
2021	12.5	18.6	20.8
2022	13.2	18.2	18.9

Mortgage/rent costs as a proportion of household gross income, by tenure type (a)

["","Owner - without mortgage","Owner - with mortgage","Renter - private landlord","Renter - state or territory housing authority","All households"]

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(a) SIH housing costs are defined as the sum of rent payments; rate payments (water and general); and mortgage or unsecured loan payments (if the initial purpose of the loan was primarily to buy, add, or alter the occupied dwelling). HILDA housing costs are not directly comparable and are simply the sum of rent payments and mortgage repayments.

Data Source

Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey

Differences across groups

In 2019-20, the ratio of housing costs to household gross income varied by family composition. In each case, the share of household income allocated to housing costs was higher for renters than it was for owners:

25.7% for single parents with dependent children who rented, compared with 17.2% for owners
19.2% for couple parents with dependent children who rented, compared with 14% for owners
26.3% for people who lived alone who rented, compared with 8.2% for owners.

Low income households spending more than 30% of their gross household income on housing costs:

46.7% of renter households
37.4% of households with a mortgage
0.9% of households without a mortgage
42% of one parent families with dependent children
30% of couple families with dependent children
26% of lone person households.

Disaggregation

Further information on housing costs as a proportion of gross household income is available at ABS Housing Occupancy and Costs 2019-20, Table 1.2.

Disaggregation available includes:

Age of household reference person
Family composition of household
Dwelling structure
Equivalised disposable household income
Main source of household income
Number of employed persons in household.