Australian homebuyers are increasingly factoring climate resilience and long-term running costs into their property decisions, with new research showing a strong preference for homes already fitted with renewable energy features, even as younger buyers take a more cautious approach to deposits and borrowing capacity.
According to Great Southern Bank's latest No Place Like Home report, 85% of Australians would prefer to buy a home with existing renewable and energy efficiency technology already installed, while more than a third (35%) are concerned about how climate-related risks such as floods, bushfires and rising insurance costs could affect their property's value over the next decade.
Energy-efficient appliances and solar panels are already the most common upgrades in Australian homes, and battery storage is expected to be the most popular addition over the next five years.
Great Southern Bank chief customer officer Rolf Stromsoe (pictured left) said the shift reflects a broader rethink of what homeownership costs over time.
"Australians are increasingly thinking about the total cost of owning a home — not just buying one," Stromsoe said.
He added that the trend is translating directly into lending activity: "This growing interest is translating into demand for green lending. Great Southern Bank has seen this firsthand with its green lending portfolio doubling over the past year..."
Maddie Walton (pictured right), broker at Money Lounge, said one of the clearest trends she's seeing is how financially educated younger buyers have become before they even start looking.
First-home buyers are budgeting carefully, researching government initiatives, and making deliberate choices about deposit size rather than assuming they need to reach the traditional 20% benchmark, she said.
That's borne out in Great Southern Bank's data: younger Australians are entering the market with larger deposits than previous generations, with Gen Z buyers most likely to put down 11% to 15%, and Millennials 16% to 20%, compared with Baby Boomers' typical 5% to 10%.
Around 80% of Australians believe cost-of-living pressures will delay their retirement, most commonly by three to five years.
"A deposit of around 10% to 15% is becoming increasingly common among the younger buyers I work with," Walton said. "For some, putting down a larger deposit can help bring repayments more in line with their lifestyle, improve their borrowing options and give them a greater financial buffer from day one."
Despite larger deposit requirements and longer savings timelines, confidence about repaying a home loan remains relatively strong overall: Great Southern Bank's research found more than half of mortgage holders (54%) feel fairly or very confident they'll clear their home loan within its original term.
Confidence levels vary just as much as deposit strategies, Walton said. She noted that confidence around paying off a home loan often has less to do with age than with where a borrower sits in their homeownership journey.
"For a Gen Z or Millennial buying their first home, they're right at the beginning of that journey and taking on what is often the biggest financial commitment they've ever made," Walton said, adding that showing clients how additional repayments or refinancing can shorten a loan's life is often key to building long-term confidence.
Together, the findings point to a more deliberate generation of buyers — weighing running costs, climate risk, and deposit strategy well before they reach settlement.
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