While housing affordability has been a perennial issue in newspaper articles and policy debates for decades, recent trends have catapulted the topic into the forefront of many peoples’ minds. Volatile house prices, dramatic changes in rents and availability of rental properties, rapid shifts in interest rates and seismic changes to location and dwelling type preferences have defined much of the public conversation since the COVID pandemic reached Australia in early 2020.

Yet the views of the Australian people about the security and affordability of their homes are too often drowned out by the voices of vested interests such property developers, banks and investors, or overruled by the self-proclaimed dispassionate analysis of economists.

The Australian Housing Monitor is a new, annual survey of public attitudes toward, and experiences of, housing. It is one of the largest surveys of its kind, and provides a rich set of data to understand how people living in Australia feel about their homes, and about the impact of ever-rising property prices. This report provides some of the headline results from the inaugural survey. Future reports will go into greater detail, and more complex analysis, of specific topics and issues.