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This blog explains how buying, building or renting a house works in Australia. It makes an interesting reading for newbies and outsiders, expats and newcomers, basically anyone who is not familiar with Australian real estate market.

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Sometimes it really helps to see “the big picture” to understand better where you fit in. Recently the Australian Bureau of Statistics released Census 2006 data and, believe it or not, if you take time to really look at it - some very interesting things surface.

As anyone who wants to own their home, I wanted to know what my chances are and when I buy it – how big will my repayments be. With those questions in mind I have done some simple math on the Census tables and this is what they reveal.

From all the families that live in Melbourne, 35 % fully own their home, 42 % are still paying the mortgage and 19 % are renting. Census divides all the families into 3 groups, so I can be even more specific:

From all the couples with no children 47 % fully own their home, 30 % are paying the mortgage and 18 % are renting, which means that for childless couple the chances of buying their home are better than other families.

For couples with children the percentage of home owners is lower: only 28 % own their home, 56 % are paying the mortgage and 13% are renting.

The single parent families have the least percentage of home owners: 27 % own their home, 32 % are paying the mortgage and 36 % are renting.

So these figures show us in a way that is very hard to argue with – it’s much easier to buy a house before starting a family and, of course, having 2 incomes instead of just one improves your chances.

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