The 2016 Census results from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) have indicated a drop in the median monthly mortgage repayments over the previous five years.
The latest data sets the median mortgage repayment for an Australian in 2016 at $1,755 per month, compared to $1,800 in 2011.
In general, mortgage holders are spending less of their income repaying their mortgages too with the number of households where loan repayments are less than 30% of income increasing from 90.1% to 92.8% between 2011 and 2016.
The data also shows that 34.5% of Australians own a home with a mortgage – slightly down from the 34.9% recorded in the previous Census. The number of people owning their home outright has also dropped from 32.1% to 31.0% during the same time period.
In a state-by-state breakdown, the ABS Census data on home owners was as follows:
| |
Owned with a mortgage |
Change since 2011 |
Owned outright |
Change since 2011 |
| NSW |
32.3% |
-1.1% |
32.2% |
-1.0% |
| Victoria |
35.3% |
-0.6% |
32.3% |
-1.9% |
| Queensland |
33.7% |
-0.8% |
28.5% |
-0.5% |
| SA |
35.3% |
None |
32.2% |
-0.6% |
| WA |
39.7% |
+1.9% |
28.5% |
-1.0% |
| NT |
29.6% |
-1.0% |
15.3% |
-0.3% |
| Tasmania |
33.5% |
-0.7% |
35.7% |
-0.5% |
| ACT |
38.4% |
-0.5% |
27.0% |
-1.4% |
Looking at median monthly mortgage repayments and households where repayments were less than 30% of the average income, the state breakdown was as follows:
| |
Median repayments |
Change since 2011 |
Repayments less than 30% of income |
Change since 2011 |
| NSW |
$1,986 |
-$7 |
92.6% |
+3.1% |
| Victoria |
$1,728 |
-$28 |
92.5% |
+2.6% |
| Queensland |
$1,733 |
-$117 |
93.6% |
+3.3% |
| SA |
$1,491 |
-$9 |
93.4% |
+2.2% |
| WA |
$1,993 |
+$43 |
91.4% |
+1.6% |
| NT |
$2,167 |
+$113 |
94.5% |
+2.2% |
| Tasmania |
$1,300 |
None |
94.9% |
+2.4% |
| ACT |
$2,058 |
-$109 |
94.5% |
+2.3% |
