Talk:Home ownership in Australia

Out of date sources
This statement is likely to be out of date: "55% of low-income households and 80% of high-income households are home-owners.[5]" -- the citation is 33 years old. What are the current stats? —Preceding unsigned comment added by You, Me and Everyone Else (talk • contribs) 16:11, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I removed it; there is no chance that data from 1977 and 1986 - a time when the Soviet Union was still around and the Internet itself was not - is still acurate or relevant to such a variable thing, and its remaining presence serves only to mislead readers. Additionally, altered the 70% of home ownership to the more recent 67%, to reflect the more recent 2011-2012 ABS report on home ownership. DC'sTasmanianDevil (talk) 10:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

But the 67% statistic is itself misleading, unless properly qualified. In 2011, about 32% of homes were owned outright, about 35% were owner/purchasers with a mortgage, the remaining 33% being almost wholly renters. Source ABS 2011 Census QuickStats

Proposed Merger
I propose merging this article and Australian property bubble both into the article Australian property market.

While the Australian property market] is the smallest of the three, I think that it is the major topic, with the other two being subsets of that topic. I believe that [[Australian property bubble suffers from recentism and has become overblown. In addition, the article title there is not really appropriate. There is no clear evidence that there is a property bubble in Australia because there has not been a substantial drop in prices. That may yet happen, but wikipedia should not be a crystal ball. In addition, assuming that the present increase in house prices does constitute a bubble, there is at least one other property bubble in Australian history (1880's, especially in Melbourne, see A History of Housing Prices in Australia 1880-2010 for example] and potentially the price changes in the early 1920s nationally and the late 1950s through to the 1960s, especially in Sydney.

I think that by merging the three articles and then building up a balanced section on the current rise in prices, we will have a better article overall.

The article Home ownership in Australia is basically a stub at present but takes a more social viewpoint. Once again, I think that it will benefit by being part of a broader article initially and perhaps expanding in to a separate article in the future.

I'll formally request a merger in a few days but initially wanted to give any page watchers (are there any???) a chance to comment. --Thepm (talk) 11:27, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Graph of floor area
That graph of floor area is grossly misleading. In the US floor spaces such as Garages and basements are not counted as "floor space". In Australia, they are, grossly inflating the floor space data.

The graph should be removed as it is inaccurate and misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.21.124 (talk) 06:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Upon looking into the matter, it seems that US floor area does not account for basements or garages, whilst Australian ones do account for garages (I could find nothing on basements, likely because they are so rare in the nation). As such, that information has been included in the caption of the graph so that the reader may be better informed. DC'sTasmanianDevil (talk) 10:57, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Affordability section is false
The affordability section states "The ratio of the price of the average home to Australians' average income was at an all-time high in the late 1990s.[11]". The reference is dated 2000, more than 20 years ago. This statement is false, ratio of house price to average income is at an all time high now, about 4-5 times what it was in the 90s... For example, in Sydney the median house price is $1.6M with an average salary of $76k. That makes the ratio 21. In contrast the median house price in Sydney in 1990 was about $150k, average annual salary $27k. That's a ratio of 5.6.

Also it may not be correct to say "young people" are buying houses at the lowest rates. More correct would be borrowers - considering not many young people can buy houses. 111.220.82.148 (talk) 04:17, 20 May 2022 (UTC)