Housing affordability across the country could pose more serious problems in the decades to come, as the increase in single-person households makes homes harder to find, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
 
The latest study said the number of households could jump from 8.4m in 2011 to between 12.6m and 12.7m in 2036. This could mean an increase between 49.3% and 51.2%.
 
With the expected household jump comes the projected rise in the country’s population to 2.4m people from 2.3m in the same period.
 
For SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher, the single-person household trend will bring more demand for one and two-bedroom units.
 
“Developers here will have a big opportunity to cash in on this ageing trend and build even greater numbers of high-density accommodation to house sole-person households,” he said.
 
He agreed that the ABS forecasts suggest that housing affordability will become an even bigger problem in the years ahead.
 
“Most of the population will remain concentrated in the bigger cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane,” said Christopher.
 
“So unless there is any drastic change by governments towards solving the housing affordability crisis, younger Australians will still struggle to own their own home.”
 

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