Winter Series E3: Households

WHO ACTUALLY LIVES IN A FRASER COAST HOUSEHOLD?

Population numbers only tell part of the story.

The way people live has also changed significantly.

In 2021, the Fraser Coast had approximately 47,544 households, compared with just over 30,000 households in 2001.

The largest household groups were:

• couples without children — 33%
• lone-person households — 25.5%
• couples with children — 18.7%
• one-parent families — 11%

This means more than one in four Fraser Coast households contains only one person, and couples without children are now the largest household type.

In Episode 3 of the Fraser Coast Property Brief Winter Series, we examine how household structures have changed and why this should influence the homes, services and communities we plan for.

One number to remember: 25.5% of households contain one person.

Transcript

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Welcome to Frodo's Coast Property Brief, the winter series. We're doing a short nine-part series on statistics around Fraser Coast. We started off with the population growth. We went into migration last week. Now in week three, we're talking about households. This is one of the most important statistics in the entire series. The average Fraser Coast household contains 2.29 people. That single number should influence the types of homes we build, the services we provide, and the way we plan neighborhoods. The total number of Fraser Coast households increased from 30,232 in 2001 to 47,541 in 2021. That grew for more than 17,000 households in 20 years. Couples without children are now the largest household type, representing 33% of all households. The number increased by 6,400 between 2001 and 2021. The lone person households are also a major strong factor in the market. They represent 25.5% of the household types in 2021 and increased by 5,341 households over a 20-year period. By comparison, couples with children represent 18.7% of the households in 2021, down from 24.3% in 2001. So you can see that is decreasing. The number of family households still increased because the population grew the share of the overall market, even though they have declined in that area. When we look at specifically household size, the picture becomes even clearer. Two-person households represent 42.9% of the overall classified households. One-person households represent 27.6%. Together, these two account for more than seven out of every 10 households in the Fraser Coast. Larger households were much less common, with 9.7% had 4.54 people or more, 4.5% had 5 people, and 2.8% had six people or more. The average household fell from 2.44 in 2001 to 2.29 in 2021. And I think now we're probably down to 2.2 or even less. This reflects the Fraser Coast age profile, the retired couples, the empty nesters, the widows, the widowers, the single adults create strong demand for smaller and more manageable housing. It also reflects young adults leaving the region and fewer households with dependent children. The anomaly is obvious. Our typical household has one or two people, yet much of the new housing market continues to focus on larger detached housing, often with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two car spaces. There is nothing wrong with building family homes. Families remain essential to our region. The issue is the balance. If seven out of ten households have one or two people in it, the market should offer more broader range of smaller homes: townhouses, duplexes, terrace homes, and apartments. It's also an affordability issue when you start looking at it this way. The mismatch has financial consequences. A person living alone may be forced to buy or rent more house than they actually need. They then carry higher construction costs, rates, insurance, energy use, cleaning, maintenance. Older residents may retain a large home because they are too attractive for alternatives in the market in the local community. The developers and investors, this is not simply a social issue, it's a market opportunity. Well-designed two-bedroom homes, smaller lots, low maintenance villas, accessible apartments can leave a large growing segment of the market and its demand. The council in infrastructure planning, smaller households mean population grow without household numbers growing. At the same rate, in other words, we need more dwellings per thousand new residents than we should in the smaller and larger houses. So to take away from this is one number that remains to remember it's 2.29 people per household, which I believe is getting lower, and it probably will come closer to 2.1 or 2 people in the near future. The phrase codes are dominated by one and two persons' households. The number of housing supply should reflect the actual people that live here, not the traditional image of a four bedroom family home. So thank you for this episode, and we'll be talking next episode about building the right homes.