1 in 5 Aussies expecting to ‘rent for life’

A recent finder.com.au survey asked 2,038 Australians about their thoughts on buying property in the current market.

It found that more than a third (38 per cent) were currently renting and less than one-fifth (19 per cent) intended to buy property in the near future.

Further, it found that approximately 18 per cent would “consider renting for life” as a result of ongoing housing affordability pressures.

When extrapolated out across the entire adult Australian population, finder.com.au outlined that this could mean that more than three million Australian residents would “consider renting for life”. 

Renters from Queensland were most doubtful about home ownership (22 per cent), followed by respondents in NSW (19 per cent), Western Australia (18 per cent), Victoria (17 per cent), and Tasmania and South Australia (13 per cent).

Conversely, 21 per cent of renters in Queensland also noted that they “intend on buying a property in the near future”, followed by NSW (20 per cent), Tasmania (19 per cent), Western Australia (18 per cent), Victoria (17 per cent) and South Australia (16 per cent).

The research also found that 5 per cent of respondents are currently rentvesting, with the highest portion of rentvestor respondents coming from Victoria (6 per cent), followed by Queensland (5 per cent), NSW and Western Australia (4 per cent), South Australia (3 per cent) and Tasmania (2 per cent).

Additionally, respondents from South Australia were most likely to own their own home (68 per cent), followed by those in Tasmania (66 per cent), Victoria and Western Australia (60 per cent), NSW (56 per cent) and Queensland (52 per cent).

Despite concerns over housing affordability, CoreLogic’s latest Hedonic Home Value Index for the month of June reported that home values have dropped by 1.3 per cent since the peak in 2017.

CoreLogic’s research revealed that dwelling values slipped by 0.2 of a percentage point in June, driven by a 0.3 of a percentage point slide in combined capital city home prices.

The sharpest reported fall was in Darwin (1.1 per cent), followed by Perth (0.5 of a percentage point), Melbourne (0.4 of a percentage point), and Sydney and Canberra (0.3 of a percentage point).

Home values increased, however, in Hobart (0.3 of a percentage point), Adelaide (0.3 of a percentage point) and Brisbane (0.2 of a percentage point).

The national median home value now sits at $556,384, with the combined capital city home value at $654,366 and the combined regional market home value at $367,135.

[Related: Aussie home values drop by $22.5bn in March quarter]