Housing Affordability Analysis
Housing Affordability Analysis (21180) tracks the national rent-to-income ratio — median weekly rent expressed as a percentage of average weekly full-time adult ordinary-time earnings. A rising ratio indicates rent is claiming a growing share of income, a direct affordability-pressure signal.
The income measure is average weekly ordinary-time earnings of full-time adults (ABS Average Weekly Earnings), not household income. It is a higher income than median individual taxable income, so the ratio sits near 34% of weekly earnings, where a ratio built on median individual taxable income sits near 61% for the same rents. This node uses the earnings measure from the Q2 2026 reading onward; the difference in level between the two is a difference in income definition, not in rents.
Earnings are published twice a year, for May and November. Each figure is held until the next is published, so movement in the quarters between releases reflects rent alone. No earnings figure is interpolated or estimated.
Primary metric: National Rent-to-Income Ratio, Z-Score
Metric typology: single-vector Z-score index, sole driver of the node reading. A state-level breakdown exists as a separate, informational-only reference and is not blended into this Z-score, to avoid double-counting the same underlying data at finer grain.
State rental bond authority data (New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania) combined with ABS Average Weekly Earnings (full-time adult ordinary-time earnings, persons, seasonally adjusted), quarterly, N=12 (Q3 2023 – Q2 2026). Earnings are published twice a year and each release is held until the next.
At +1.2395σ (Q2 2026), the rent-to-income ratio is running above its mean for the Q3 2023 to Q2 2026 window. Position. Indicative 89.2: empirical ranking begins at 20 quarters and this record holds 12, so the position is model-based, read from the Z-score. The ratio moves with Rental Market Analysis (21190) but not in lockstep: in quarters when a new earnings figure is published, earnings growth absorbs part of the rise in rents, and in the quarters between releases the ratio moves with rent alone. The step down in Q4 2024 followed a November 2024 earnings figure that rose 2.7% against a rise in rents of under 1%. The same pattern produced the step down in Q2 2026: the May 2026 earnings figure rose 1.6% against a rise in rents of 1.0%, so the ratio eased from +1.5965σ in Q1 2026, the highest reading in the record.
Baseline. The baseline holds twelve quarters, Q3 2023 to Q2 2026, and includes the current quarter. It is shorter than the standard window and its end moves forward with each new quarter, so the mean, the standard deviation and every Z-score on this page are recalculated when a quarter is added.
The gold line is the node’s reading in each quarter, September 2023 to June 2026. The grey dashed line marks 0σ, the baseline mean. The reading was lowest at −1.6373σ in the September quarter 2023 and highest at +1.5965σ in the March quarter 2026. The June quarter 2026 reading is +1.2395σ. Because the baseline covers this same window, the line averages zero across it.
Each bar is a state’s rent-to-income ratio Z-score for the June quarter 2026, against that state’s own Q3 2023 to Q2 2026 baseline: New South Wales +1.3466σ (64.15), Queensland +1.6495σ (57.25), South Australia +1.5260σ (51.41), Western Australia +1.5128σ (58.26) and Tasmania +1.9914σ (50.18). State ratios use each state’s median individual taxable income as the income measure, so their levels are not comparable with the national ratio of 33.39; each Z-score shows the state’s position against its own record. State readings are informational and are not blended into the node reading.
The other two components of Property Prices & Market Reports (21100).
Housing Affordability Analysis (21180) holds Active status. The certified Z-score is +1.2395σ (Q2 2026, N=12), with an indicative model-based position of 89.2. The baseline is a twelve-quarter window that includes the certified quarter and moves forward with each new quarter. That window, the short observation record and the income definition described in Section 1 are disclosed features of the construction.
