Home owners more likely to have children compared to renters, says a University of Sydney study

Australia’s strong housing price increases can be linked to the likelihood of a couple having children, says a new University of Sydney study.

If you’ve been following the news you know that the Aussie housing market hasn’t stopped growing and in September of last year it reached $9.1 trillion in value. And anecdotally, many Aussie couples are among the contributors, fronting up to auctions to bid up and pay toward this total.

Typically couples look into buying a home when they want to grow their family. However, when that couple can’t buy a home, the chances of them growing or starting their family decrease, according to the Sydney Uni study.

The study analysed female owner-occupants and renter-occupants aged between 25 and 45 years old between 2001-2018, and found a distinct difference between the groups. For example, the study showed an increase of $100,000 in prices led women who owned homes to be 18% more likely to have a child. 

Meanwhile, in that same time period, women who were renters had a 25% lower intention of having kids. Also those who owned homes tended to have more children than their renter counterparts.

“The increase in housing costs may directly impact fertility, which may have significant fiscal implications over the long term,” concludes the study.

Are there cheaper houses available for first time buyers?

If you are a first time home buyer looking to get your foot in the door, do not be discouraged, however. There are tools to help, including one by mortgage broker Aussie, which created the Aussie Suburb Spotter Map to help you find homes with a deposit of $100,000 or less across Australia. Sometimes by exploring outside of popular suburbs you can find the house of your dreams at an affordable rate.

By simply doing your own homework too, you can usually pick up price differences between popular suburbs within a 30 kilometre radius of the CBD and say, an outer, less urbanised area. These outer suburbs tend to be more affordable.

There are also several government schemes in place to help potential homeowners to increase their purchasing power like:

• The First Home Owner Grant
  
• The First Home Loan Deposit Scheme
  
• The First Home Super Saver Scheme
  
• The Family Home Guarantee

Each scheme varies based on the state or territory you live in, so make sure to do your research first.

Interested in learning more information on how to buy a home? Head on over to the Mozo home loans guides to learn more. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a home loan check out our comparison table below.