Housing Affordability

Analysing the state of the Australian market through prices, serviceability and rental cost pressure.

National Median Price

Sydney Median Price

Modelled Serviceability

Stylised mortgage scenario

Rental Affordability

Capital City Median House Prices
Affordability Indices

Cost-pressure indexes; higher = less affordable. Rent uses ABS CPI rents/WPI, mortgage uses price×rate/WPI, deposit uses price/income, and price-to-income uses national dwelling prices/WPI.

Price Trends

Capital-city dwelling price indexes and ABS rent CPI movements.

Dwelling Price Index by Capital City

ABS dwelling price data. Price indexes describe market price movements, not household affordability or borrowing capacity.

Rent Consumer Price Index (CPI) by Greater Capital City

ABS CPI rents are price indexes. They measure rental price movements, not the housing cost burden of lower-income renters.

Source: ABS — Consumer Price Index, Australia

Affordability

Cost-pressure indexes, stylised market-entry scenarios and SIH survey burden measures.

Affordability Analysis
Affordability Indicators

Cost-pressure indexes; higher = less affordable. Market-entry measures use wage, price and rate proxies, not official ABS stress definitions.

Modelled Serviceability

Modelled annual repayment share using selected deposit, implied LVR, loan term and RBA mortgage-rate inputs; uses AWE individual earnings as the income proxy. The 30% line is a stress reference, not a lender pass/fail rule. Stylised scenario, not an official ABS measure or lender assessment.

Monthly Repayment

Nominal Repayment / Gross Income

Assessed Repayment / Gross Income

Years to Save Deposit

Loan-to-Value Ratio

Total Interest Paid

Deposit Amount

Housing Cost Stress Bands (2019-20)

ABS Survey of Income and Housing. Official survey-based housing cost burden bands by household group. SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

Housing Cost-to-Income Ratio by Tenure & Demographics (2019-20)

ABS Survey of Income and Housing. Gross-income housing cost ratios by tenure and demographic group. SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

Geographic Affordability

SIH-only comparisons where housing costs and household-income denominators are measured within the same geography.

State SIH Cost-to-Income Trend

ABS Survey of Income and Housing. These are geography-aligned SIH survey measures; not modelled market-entry indexes. Trend uses File 12 state/territory SIH estimates. SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

Latest State Comparison

ABS Survey of Income and Housing. These are geography-aligned SIH survey measures; not modelled market-entry indexes. Latest available survey year from the state SIH series. SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

Lower-Income State Burden

ABS Survey of Income and Housing. These are geography-aligned SIH survey measures; not modelled market-entry indexes. Lower-income household estimates from SIH File 8. SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

Capital City / Rest-of-State Comparison

ABS Survey of Income and Housing. These are geography-aligned SIH survey measures; not modelled market-entry indexes. Greater-capital-city and rest-of-state estimates from SIH File 11. SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

Labour & Demographics

Analysing the state of the Australian market through rates, labour spare capacity and population demand.

Unemployment Rate

Trend estimate

Net Overseas Migration

Annual estimate

Participation Rate

Trend estimate

Interest Rates on Residential Mortgages

RBA mortgage rates are market-rate inputs, not lender assessment outcomes or household serviceability approvals.

Labour Market Spare Capacity

ABS labour force rates. KPI changes are percentage-point changes, not relative percentage changes.

Population Demand

ABS population data. Net overseas migration is shown as an annualised flow in thousands.

Housing Supply

Building activity and construction costs across approvals, dwelling mix and construction-cost pressure.

NSW Approvals

Monthly dwelling units

VIC Approvals

Monthly dwelling units

Construction Costs

CPI New Dwelling Index

Houses Share

% of total approvals

Building Approvals

ABS building approvals. Approval counts are supply pipeline indicators, not completed dwellings. State, building type and sector controls filter the same ABS series rather than changing methodology.

CPI New Dwelling Purchase (Construction Cost)

ABS CPI new dwelling purchase is a construction-cost price index, not a household burden measure.

Rental Market

NHHA rental stress, rental cost pressure and SIH rental-cost survey estimates.

NHHA Rental Stress by State

ABS Survey of Income and Housing, NHHA lower-income renter stress. Official survey burden/stress measure. SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

NHHA Rental Stress Trends (Over Time)

ABS Survey of Income and Housing, NHHA lower-income renter stress. Values are proportions of lower-income renter households. SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

Rental Affordability Index

Cost-pressure index using ABS CPI rents and WPI; higher = less affordable.

Weekly Rental Costs by Demographics (2019-20)

ABS Survey of Income and Housing. Survey rental-cost estimates by household characteristic. SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

Methodology & Provenance

Indicator definitions, source series and interpretation caveats.

Download Methodology Summary
Official SIH/NHHA burden measures

ABS Survey of Income and Housing measures describe observed household housing costs, gross-income cost ratios and NHHA lower-income renter stress.

These are official survey burden and stress measures, separate from price-index or market-entry proxy indicators.

SIH estimates are survey estimates; relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are saved in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv, and users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.

Market-entry cost-pressure indexes

Derived dashboard indicators use prices, wages, rents and rates to summarise cost pressure over time.

Higher values generally mean less affordable unless the table states otherwise. These are analytical indexes, not official ABS affordability measures.

Stylised scenario calculators

Serviceability, deposit-gap and calculator outputs use fixed modelling assumptions for a stylised household.

These stylised scenarios are not official ABS measures or lender assessments.

R/market_entry_scenarios.R defines the app-only market-entry scenarios used by the calculator and assessed-rate sensitivity chart.

Assessment buffer and expense inputs are sensitivity assumptions, not a lender assessment.

Deposit, LVR and loan-term controls are stylised serviceability assumptions; the serviceability chart uses AWE individual earnings as the income proxy.

Derived Indicator Registry

The table is generated from R/indicator_registry.R. The provenance chain is pipeline/05_driver.R -> pipeline/06_validate_outputs.R -> data/*.csv -> R/indicator_registry.R -> dashboard labels.

Economic Caveats
  • AWE is individual earnings, not household disposable income.
  • WPI is a wage price index, not an income distribution measure.
  • CPI rents and CPI new dwelling indexes are price indexes, not household burden measures.
  • Assessment buffer and expense inputs are sensitivity assumptions, not a lender assessment.
  • Deposit, LVR and loan-term controls are stylised serviceability assumptions; the serviceability chart uses AWE individual earnings as the income proxy.
  • KPI colours encode economic interpretation as better, worse or neutral/contextual rather than raw up/down movement.
  • SIH relative standard error and 95% margin of error metadata are provided in data/sih_estimate_quality.csv; users should interpret with caution when estimates have high RSE values.
  • Chart-level reliability markers (†) are driven by data/sih_estimate_quality.csv where matching SIH RSE metadata is available.
  • Where available, visible error bars and interval hover text use 95% margin-of-error metadata from data/sih_estimate_quality.csv.
  • Gross-income SIH cost ratios, NHHA lower-income rental stress and modelled market-entry scenarios should not be interpreted as the same concept.
Release Provenance
  • Run pipeline/05_driver.R to refresh local SIH, ABS and RBA-derived CSV outputs.
  • Run pipeline/06_validate_outputs.R to gate required schemas, source series and minimum row counts.
  • The app reads saved data/*.csv outputs at launch.
  • R/indicator_registry.R documents derived indicator formulas, source series, units and interpretation direction.