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While rising house prices may be good for existing home owners, new AHURI research finds it has implications for a government agenda to increase growth in Australia’s economic productivity.

The most recent Housing Occupancy and Costs data from the ABS reveals that the percentage of Q1 and Q2 households who either own their home outright or are in public housing fell in the years between 2000–01 and 2013–14. This shows the shift for lower income households from more secure housing tenures (i.e. outright home ownership and public housing) to the less secure tenures of buying their own home and private rental.

AHURI is pleased to release the report from its Inquiry, ‘Individualised forms of welfare provision and reform of Australia’s housing assistance system’. It found that, due to shortages of affordable accommodation, it is difficult for low-income households to exercise choice in the private rental market.

In 2013–14, the cohort of Q1 households had the largest proportion of households who were outright home owners. It is likely many of these Q1 households comprised retired householders living in the homes they bought when they were working and are now on government support such as age pensions.

In January 2016 the Australian Government announced the establishment of an Affordable Housing Working Group to investigate ways to boost the supply of affordable rental housing through innovative financing models. One of the challenges for any national system to improve the supply of affordable housing proposed by the Affordable Housing Working Group will be to respond to the very different circumstances in the State and Territory capitals.