An Australian rental housing conditions research infrastructure

Emma Baker,Kath Hulse,Christian Nygaard,Lyrian Daniel,Andrew Beer,Wendy Stone,Rebecca Bentley,Kerry London,Michelle Baddeley,Steven Rowley,Anthony Lockwood

doi:10.1038/s41597-022-01136-5

Abstract

Each year the proportion of Australians who rent their home increases and, for the first time in generations, there are now as many renters as outright homeowners. Researchers and policy makers, however, know very little about housing conditions within Australia’s rental housing sector due to a lack of systematic, reliable data. In 2020, a collaboration of Australian universities commissioned a survey of tenant households to build a data infrastructure on the household and demographic characteristics, housing quality and conditions in the Australian rental sector. This data infrastructure was designed to be national (representative across all Australian States and Territories), and balanced across key population characteristics. The resultant Australian Rental Housing Conditions Dataset (ARHCD) is a publicly available data infrastructure for researchers and policy makers, providing a basis for national and international research.

Highlights

Background & SummaryIn an Australia dominated by a Great Australian Dream of homeownership, renting has traditionally been regarded as a transitional, rather than a lifetime tenure[1,2]
Rental has become Australia’s fastest growing and most diverse tenure with private renting increasing by 64 per cent 2001–2016, twice the rate of household growth[4]
While the shape of the Australian rental housing market is rapidly changing, we know very little about conditions ‘beyond the front door’ of Australia’s growing rental stock

Summary

Introduction

Background & SummaryIn an Australia dominated by a Great Australian Dream of homeownership, renting has traditionally been regarded as a transitional, rather than a lifetime tenure[1,2]. To maximise responses and increase representativeness of the renter population, tenant households were surveyed using a combination of computer-aided telephone interviews (CATIs) and an online survey method.

Results

Conclusion