Tenancy Disputes and Bonds: What Each State Reports
No two states count tenancy disputes the same way, and none of the reports reviewed shows how they end. Bond data is fuller: in NSW, 61.6% of bonds refunded in 2025 went back to the tenant in full.
Capital Cities and the Rest: Population Growth by Greater Capital City
In the year to June 2025 the capital cities grew 1.76% and the rest of the states 1.08%, taking 77% of national growth. The capitals grow through overseas migration while Sydney and Melbourne lose residents internally.
What Is Heritage-Listed? The Registers, State by State
NSW has 1,825 items on its State Heritage Register and 36,724 in its councils’ plans; Victoria has 2,428 on its register and 25,048 mapped heritage overlay areas; the Commonwealth lists 126 places of national significance. The registers count different things,...
The Population the Projections Expected: ABS Projections Against What Happened
By June 2025 Australia’s population was 369,000 below the 2017-based medium projection and 207,000 above the 2022-based one. How two editions of ABS projections compare with what happened.
High Debt-to-Income Lending Since 2019: The Share, the Rate Cycle and the New Limit
In the June quarter 2026, 5.4% of new home lending was written at six times the borrower’s income or more, against 23.8% at the December 2021 peak. Investors sat at 8.9% and owner-occupiers at 3.7% in the first full quarter...
What Applies Where: The Laws Behind a Home in Each Capital City
Planning, building, strata, renting, sale of land, duty and land tax: which law governs each, in the capital city council area of every state and territory.
Home Energy Ratings: What Australia Measures
The 7-star standard started state by state between October 2023 and May 2025. The only long series for homes sold is the ACT's, where a considerable part of the rise in ratings likely came from new builds.
Where Growth Lands: Population Change by State and Territory
Western Australia grew fastest in the year to March 2026 and Tasmania slowest. Overseas migration was the largest source of growth in every state, while New South Wales lost 20,818 people interstate and Queensland gained 14,718.
Who Reports Rental Losses: Fourteen Years by Age and Income
In 2023–24, 1,276,669 Australians reported a net loss on rental property, 54.8% of those with a rental result, up from a low of 41.9% in 2021–22. About seven in ten rental holders under 40 report a loss, against 13.7% of...
People per Household: Average Household Size Across Three Censuses
Australia’s average household fell from 2.6 people to 2.5 between the 2016 and 2021 Censuses. One-person households rose to 25.6% of the total, and the ABS projections disagree on whether that continues.
First Home Buyers Who Buy to Invest: A Share That More Than Halved
In the June quarter 2026, first home buyers took 2.88% of new investor loans, the lowest share since the ABS began counting in 2019 and less than half the 6.31% peak of March 2021. Their loans fell while investor lending...
Dwelling Investment in the National Accounts: A High Built on Renovation
Private dwelling investment reached $38.1 billion in the June quarter of 2026 in volume terms, the highest in the series, and added about 0.31 points to GDP growth over the year. Alterations and additions are at their highest; new dwelling...
Filled Jobs and the Unemployment Rate: Two Counts of One Labour Market
Over the year to June 2026 filled jobs rose 2.6% while the number of people employed rose 1.1%, and unemployment rose to 4.65% in August, from 4.22% a year earlier. The difference is largely second jobs: 6.9% of employed people...
Housing in the 2026–27 Budgets: A Ledger of Every Government’s Measures
The Commonwealth will pay the states $2.9 billion for housing in 2026–27 and is changing how rental property is taxed. Every state and territory budget carries its own housing measures, counted its own way. This ledger sets out what each...
First Home Buyer Assistance, State by State: Grants, Duty Relief and What Is Published
Seven states and territories pay a first home owner grant, from $10,000 to $50,000, and every one pays it only on a new home. Six relieve transfer duty for first home buyers, three with no cap on the value of...
The Age Pyramid, 2011 to 2026: How Australia’s Age Structure Has Shifted
Between 2011 and 2026 the number of Australians aged 75 to 79 rose 86% while children under five rose 3.2%. The median age went from 37.2 to 38.5 and the most common single age from 39 to 31.
How Much of Each Cash-Rate Change Reaches Borrowers: Rates Charged Since 2022
The RBA raised the cash rate to 4.60% on 29 September 2026. Across 2022 and 2023, about 83% of the increases reached existing owner-occupier variable rates; the changes of 2025 and 2026 reached them in full.
Enforcement Intensity: Twenty Years of Enforceable Undertakings
APRA has accepted 37 enforceable undertakings since 2005, none in seven of the 21 years, and every one since 2014 from an institution. What the register and ASIC's six-monthly counts show, and what small numbers cannot.
Self-Funded Retiree Households: How Their Living Costs Have Moved
Self-funded retiree households have had the smallest rise in living costs of the four household types the ABS tracks: 115.3% since 1998. Insurance and financial services, which include interest charges, are only 7.0% of their costs, against 18.4% for employee...
The Contributions Rule Set: How Each Jurisdiction Charges Development for Infrastructure
Every Australian jurisdiction lets development be charged for infrastructure, but through different instruments: contributions plans, a capped charge, statutory schemes, agreements or a lease variation charge. What each framework provides, and what it requires to be published.
Contributions Held: What NSW Councils Have Collected and Not Yet Spent
NSW councils held $5.4 billion in contributions collected from developers at 30 June 2025, up $2.2 billion in four years. About half sat with fourteen councils, and ten of those spent less than a fifth of their opening balance in...
Fewer Working-Age People per Older Australian: The Dependency Ratio Since 2011
There were 27.2 Australians aged 65 and over for every 100 aged 15 to 64 in March 2026, up from 20.5 in 2011. The ratio rose fastest when the borders closed and barely moved while migration was at its highest.
Tenancy Law Across the States: Bonds, Rent Increases and Notice in Eight Acts
Every state and territory writes its own tenancy law. Read side by side, the eight residential tenancies Acts largely agree on three basic rules: seven cap a bond at four weeks' rent and seven allow one rent increase in 12...
First Home Buyers and Investors: Fifteen Years of the Lending Growth Race
Since 2011 first home buyer lending has grown faster than investor lending in 31 of 62 quarters, and the lead has changed hands nine times. In the June quarter of 2026 first home buyers moved ahead again, on larger loans...
The Building Code for New Homes: Editions, Adoption and the Pause to 2029
NCC 2025 was released on 1 May 2026, and the states have split on when it applies: three from May 2026, four from May 2027, and one has not adopted it. Residential changes to the code are paused until mid-2029.
What Kind of Homes Are Approved: Houses and Other Dwellings, 1970 to 2026
In 2025–26, 40.6% of the new homes approved in Australia were not houses. The share peaked at 49.1% in 2015–16, and it ranges from 80.4% in the Australian Capital Territory to 7.4% in Tasmania.
The Population Growth Rate Since 2011: Where 1.43% Sits
Australia’s population grew 1.43% in the year to March 2026: below its 2011–2025 average of 1.52%, slower than in all but 11 of those 60 quarters, and close to its average since 1982.
Holding Costs: Land-Tax Surcharges on Foreign and Absentee Owners, State by State
Five states and territories charge foreign or absent owners an extra rate of land tax each year, from 0.75% in the ACT to 5% in New South Wales. How each surcharge was built since 2016, who it applies to, and...
Who Writes the Zones: Australia’s Zoning Instruments, State by State
Zones are written three ways in Australia: one instrument for the jurisdiction, a state scheme with local schedules, or a scheme for each council on a state framework. And the instruments are amended continually.
Births, Deaths and Arrivals: Where Australia’s Population Growth Comes From
Three in every four of the 392,800 people added to Australia’s population in the year to March 2026 came from net overseas migration. Births have held near 300,000 a year while deaths have risen by a third, so natural increase...
From Fees to a Ban: Fifteen Years of Commonwealth Rules on Foreign Home Purchases
Before December 2015 a foreign buyer of a new home paid the Commonwealth nothing. Today the fee at $1 million is $15,600 for a new home and $46,800 for an established one, and established homes are closed to foreign buyers,...
Does Public Infrastructure Follow New Housing? Enabling Works and Dwelling Starts Since 1988
Public engineering work on roads, water, sewerage and power has moved in the same direction as dwelling commencements in only 73 of 152 quarters since 1988. Between the years to March 2022 and 2026 it almost doubled while commencements fell.
How Much Land Is Zoned for Housing? What the States Report
Asked by National Cabinet how many homes their land could hold, seven jurisdictions gave a greenfield figure and three an infill figure, with no definitions. A national figure for the housing capacity of zoned land cannot be built from what...
Where the Pressure Isn’t: Jobs and Lending Near Normal, Migration Still Above It
Unemployment, jobs growth and new lending to first home buyers and investors all sit close to their 2011–2025 averages. Migration is the exception: easing from its 2023 peak, but still above any year from 2011 to 2020.
Land Tax and Duty in the Statute Book: Who Levies What, Under Which Acts
Six jurisdictions levy transfer duty under a Duties Act made between 1997 and 2008; South Australia and the Northern Territory keep stamp duty Acts of 1923 and 1978. Every jurisdiction except the Northern Territory levies land tax, and New South...
The Extra Cost of Buying New as a Foreign Person: Eight Jurisdictions, One $1m Home
A foreign person buying a new $1 million home pays between 1.51% and 10.51% of the price more than an Australian resident, depending on the state or territory. How the state duty surcharges and the Commonwealth application fee built that...
Who Provides Social Housing Now: The Community Housing Sector, 2006 to 2025
Community housing held 30,103 dwellings in 2006 and 118,425 in 2025, taking its share of social housing from 7.4% to 26.2% while public housing fell by 44,837. Part of the shift was transfer of existing dwellings, not new building. The...
When Development Must Include Affordable Housing, State by State
No Australian jurisdiction requires every new housing development to include affordable housing. South Australia expects 15% in developments of 20 or more dwellings within its overlay, the City of Sydney levies 3% of residential floor area, and New South Wales...
What Affordable Housing Means, Jurisdiction by Jurisdiction
Affordable housing is defined three different ways in Australian state law: by household income in New South Wales and Victoria, by rent in Queensland's priority development areas, and by sale price in South Australia, where the limit for a dwelling...
Homelessness Services: What Is Provided and What Is Not
In 2024–25, specialist homelessness services identified a need for long-term housing for 113,368 people and provided it to 4,407. They recorded 128,915 requests they could not assist, most often because no accommodation was available. What the service records measure, and...
What the Homelessness Counts Show
On Census night 2021, 122,494 people in Australia were counted as homeless, 48.2 per 10,000. In 2024–25, 288,970 people received help from specialist homelessness services. The two counts measure different things, and the largest group in the Census count is...
What a Social Housing Waiting List Counts
At 30 June 2025, 205,977 households were on the AIHW's consolidated social housing waitlist. Each state assembles its list under its own rules, and the share classed in greatest need runs from 16.8% in New South Wales to 99.6% in...
Social Housing as a Share of All Dwellings, 2012 to 2025
Social housing made up 4.69% of Australia's residential dwellings in June 2012 and 3.98% in June 2025, and the share fell in each of the thirteen years that followed. The stock grew by 25,311 dwellings while about 2.26 million were...
Who Sets the Sustainability Rules for a New Home
Of the 637 instruments in force in the APN Regulatory Instrument Library, three name energy or sustainability in their title, and the library has no subject for it at all. The requirements that decide how a new home performs are...
The Serviceability Buffer: Three Settings Since 2014
APRA's minimum serviceability buffer has had three settings since 2014: 2 percentage points with a 7% floor, 2.5 points from July 2019 and 3 points from October 2021. What each setting does to the rate at which loans are tested,...
What Is Pushing Up the Cost of Building a House in 2026
The materials that go into a new house cost 3.8% more in the June quarter 2026 than a year earlier, the fastest annual rise in eleven quarters; in the two years to the December quarter 2025 the figure never went...
The Two-Year Yield Before Each Rate Change
Across the 29 changes to the cash rate target since September 2013, the two-year Australian Government bond yield, read at the last close before each decision was announced, sat below the target before 12 of the 13 reductions and above...
What Builders Charge Against What Their Materials Cost, State by State
Since the end of 2020 the materials that go into a new house have risen in price by between 35.2% and 42.7% in every state capital. What builders charge for the finished house has not moved together: 32.1% in Melbourne,...
Above the Cash Rate: What Borrowers Are Actually Charged
The advertised standard variable home-loan rate has sat 4.42 percentage points above the cash rate in 67 of the 69 months since November 2020, moving point for point with it. The rates borrowers are actually charged have not: new owner-occupier...
Heritage and Environment in the Statute Book
One hundred and nine of the 637 instruments in the APN Regulatory Instrument Library govern heritage, the environment or natural hazards. Every one is made by a state, a territory or the Commonwealth, and 96 of them are Acts or...
