Queensland’s Housing Stress: Top 5 housing stressed regions revealed

Australians for Affordable Housing (AAH) today revealed the extent of housing stress across Queensland, and the top five housing stressed council areas.

New modelling commissioned by AAH also shows that more than 55,000 households in Brisbane Council are in housing stress. Those in the rental market are doing it hardest with 28 per cent of households in rental stress.

“The high cost of housing in Queensland is not new, but these figures show where the pain is being felt,” said AAH Campaign Manager Sarah Toohey.

“Households in Gympie, Fraser Coast, Gold Coast and Logan are suffering the most with 19 per cent experiencing housing stress, while Fraser Coast has the highest proportion of people under rental stress (46%).

“Areas such as Fraser Coast, Gympie, Somerset and Bundaberg all have rates of rental stress over 43 per cent, as well as high rates of mortgage stress with over 23 per cent of home buyers in those areas under financial pressure. The highest level of mortgage stress was recorded in Etheridge (31%).

“When low income households spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing costs they are officially in housing stress. This means they have very little left over to cover other costs like food, transport, bills or money for emergencies.”

Adrian Pisarski, Executive Officer of Queensland Shelter said these figures were a wake up call to governments. “People are obsessed with the housing stress on home owners, but these figures show that housing stress is most severe for renters. We seriously need to think about rental stress in solutions to affordable housing,” said Mr Pisarski.

“Last week, AAH called on the Federal Government to commit to a long term strategy to improve housing affordability, at the launch of our budget statement in Canberra. We need the State and Federal Governments to work together to fund that strategy and deliver the housing system that Queensland needs,” said Ms Toohey.

“Given that housing is the biggest cost of living issue for Queenslanders, we’d hope that all candidates in the upcoming election commit to policies that will improve housing affordability.

“Policies that increase the supply of affordable housing, like building more public and community housing work. Others, like increasing first home buyer grants, just push up house prices and make problems for first home buyers worse.

“Australians for Affordable Housing is urging Queensland residents in housing stress to join the campaign to convince governments to work together to address the housing crisis. More information can be found on our website www.housingstressed.org.au.

“We need action at all levels of government to ensure that we fix our broken housing system, and take the pressure off families struggling with high housing costs and lack of affordable options,” said Ms Toohey.

Spokesperson: Sarah Toohey, 0427 563 989 or
Media inquiries: Stephanie De Campo, 0432 828 004

Housing stress – Australians for Affordable Housing local council league table*

*This league table provides for comparison of small local areas and is based on modelled census numbers. These figures are not directly comparable with recently published housing stress modelling on ABS Survey of Income and Housing data