The average size of Australian homes, inclusive of both houses and apartments, has hit a 20-year low, a new report has found; however, Western Australia is building the largest homes in the country.
The average size of Australian homes, inclusive of both houses and apartments, has hit a 20-year low, a new report has found; however, Western Australia is building the largest homes in the country.
The CommSec Home Size Trends report, released with data commissioned from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, has revealed the average home size nationally for 2016-17 was 189.8 square metres – down 2.7 per cent over the past 12 months and the smallest since 1997.
However, the report notes that the smaller home size was largely impacted by the increase of apartment buildings during this time, claiming that around half of all new buildings across the country currently are apartments.
Other potential factors the report lists include the drop in the number of persons occupying each dwelling. In 1911 there were an average of 4.5 people per home, but by 2006 this number had almost halved to around 2.4 people.
WA recorded the biggest average floor area for homes built in 2016-17 at 214.3sqm, with 69 percent of new homes free-standing houses.
There was no state-by-state average home size 20-year analysis provided, however, there was a long-term breakdown for both home types.
The average new house built in 2016-17 nationally was 233.3sqm, the biggest in four years and more than 11 per cent larger than 20 years ago.
In WA, the average floor area of a house (242.5sqm) was marginally the second largest in the country behind Victoria at 242.8sqm, with Tasmania building the smallest new houses (195.5sqm).
This figure was also the highest average house floor area the state had experienced since 2009.
That data contrasts with figures for average land size in the state provided by the Urban Development Institute of Australia WA, which shows that the average lot size in the Perth metropolitan region fell by 28.7 per cent during the past decade, and has shrunk from 499sqm in 2009 to 363sqm in June 2017.
The average floor area for apartments built in WA fell by 4.5 per cent to 123sqm, and was among the lowest in the country, only above ACT at 95.8sqm.
The report also found that, despite the 20-year low, Australia was still building some of the biggest houses in the world. On average, however, numbers were still behind houses in the US, which were larger by around 5 per cent, with US homes (houses and apartments) 8 per cent bigger.
