How many homes in Australia are mortgaged?

More than a third (35%) of Australia’s 9.8 million fleet of homes are owned with a mortgage, while just under a third (31%) are owned outright, a 2021 census has revealed. Thirty per cent (30%) are rented.

While the number of homes owned outright or with a mortgage has not significantly changed since 1996, deputy statistician Teresa Dickinson noted the proportion of homes owned with a mortgage instead of outright has been growing.

“Over the last 25 years, the number of homes owned outright has increased by 10%, while the number owned with a mortgage has doubled,” she said in a media conference in Canberra.

The census recorded 10,852,208 private dwellings, 70% of which were separate houses, 14% of which were townhouses, and 16% of which were apartments.

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The majority of the homes were detached, while more than three million dwellings had at least four bedrooms. Of the 2.9 million homes owned outright, 2.4 million of them were standalone properties. Of the 3.3 million homes owned under a mortgage, 2.7 million were detached.

The same study revealed that of the 23.5 million Aussies who lived in a private dwelling, the vast majority (20.1 million) lived in a family situation, though a still significant 2.5 million lived alone while another 871,349 lived together in a group. There were also 2.8 million rental households – or 280,000 more than recorded in the 2016 census, according to advocacy group Better Renting – while public housing decreased by more than 25,000.

“These figures show that governments aren’t even providing enough public housing to keep up with population growth, let alone an increase in public housing to meet the urgent need for people who are currently couch-surfing, sleeping in their cars, or skipping meals to pay the rent,” said Better Renting executive director Joel Dignam.

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Of the six million people who lived in a home owned outright, 875,176 had a weekly income of $4,000 or more, while from almost 10 million paying off a mortgage, 2.4 million were in the same wage bracket.

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The census recorded seven million Aussie renters, 926,918 of whom had a weekly salary of $2,000 to $2,999, and 712,288 of whom reported a weekly income of $4,000 or more. More than 100,000 renters had no income at all.

Of the circa 30,000 people purchasing a house under a shared-equity scheme, the majority of them (2,588) had a weekly salary of $650 to $799, the census data showed.