Housing stress is on the rise: 7 essential charts from this year’s HILDA survey

Steve Christo - Corbis/via Getty Images Every year, one of Australia’s biggest longitudinal surveys provides a range of insights on how the nation is changing.

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, released today , provides unique insights into the lives of Australians, and collects rich data on income, employment, health and wellbeing.

HILDA has been following the same people every year since 2001, with about 17,000 respondents in the latest survey.

This makes it possible to examine how the lives of Australians have changed over time.

Funded by the Australian government and managed by the Melbourne Institute, the survey is one of Australia’s most valuable social research tools .

So, what are the highlights from the 2026 report? Housing stress is on the rise Housing stress occurs when a low-income household spends more than 30% of its after-tax income on rent or mortgage payments.

This can leave little money for food, transport and other essentials.

We define low income as being in the bottom 40% of Australia’s household income distribution, after adjusting for household size.

This adjustment recognises that a family needs more income than a person living alone.

Housing costs and incomes differ substantially across Australia, so we separately examine three different regions.

Among those living in the five mainland capitals – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide – the share of mortgage holders in housing stress more than doubled between 2021 and 2024, rising from 4.4% to 10%.

Renters living in mainland capital cities had much higher rates – about one in four experienced housing stress in 2024, compared with about one in five in 2001.

The largest long-term increase in housing stress was among renters living in regional areas, which includes small towns of fewer than 1,000 people as well as rural and remote areas.

Rates of housing stress for this group rose from about 13% in 2001 to 29% in 2024.