Australians away from home on Census night can have their usual residence recorded as unoccupied, fuelling confusion about how many homes are genuinely sitting empty.
More than a million Australian homes are expected to be recorded as “unoccupied” in this week’s Census, and the misnomer has experts worried about political fallout.
Australians away for work, on holiday, in hospital or staying elsewhere will have their usual residence counted as empty on Census night.
But experts have warned the little-known quirk of the nation’s biggest data collection exercise could soon see pundits misinterpreting “unoccupied” as those that are deliberately being left vacant.
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Housing Industry Association senior economist Tom Devitt said a home being unoccupied on Census night was very different from being an empty, available home.
“Unoccupied is not vacant,” Mr Devitt said.
“If you’re on holiday, away for work, staying with family, in hospital, or simply somewhere else, your home may be unoccupied.
“It hasn’t suddenly become a vacant home available to solve Australia’s housing shortage.”
About one in 10 Australian dwellings has historically been recorded as unoccupied on Census night, equating to roughly one million properties.
Housing Industry Association senior economist Tom Devitt says homes recorded as unoccupied on Census night should not automatically be considered vacant housing.
Mr Devitt said that figure could include homes between tenants, properties being renovated, deceased estates, holiday homes and newly completed dwellings.
He said location also mattered when considering whether genuinely empty properties could help ease housing shortages.
“A holiday home on the coast does not solve a rental shortage in Sydney,” Mr Devitt said.
“A farmhouse hundreds of kilometres from employment does not house a worker in Melbourne.”
Real Estate Institute of Australia president Jacob Caine says the number of residential investors able to deliberately leave homes vacant and unrented is “incredibly small”.
Real Estate Institute of Australia president Jacob Caine said the Census statistic was often accurately reported, but then incorrectly interpreted.
“It’s a statistic, it’s often reported accurately, but misinterpreted,” Mr Caine said.
“The number of genuinely vacant residential properties across Australia is significantly lower than that recorded in the Census.”
Mr Caine said the group of residential investors able to deliberately leave usable homes vacant and unrented was “incredibly small”.
“They tend to be people that are property rich, in that they own often dozens, if not more, properties,” Mr Caine said.
“They also tend to not have mortgages on those properties.”
He added that governments should still consider incentives to bring genuinely unused investment properties back onto the rental market.
“We should have a regulatory and taxation environment that rewards those investors that make their properties available to Australian renters,” Mr Caine said.
But he warned bringing empty homes back into use would not remove the need for more housing.
“Fundamentally, supply and delivery of new housing is the main game in tackling housing affordability.”
Baseline Financial director Ari Levinson says ordinary mortgaged investors are increasingly unable to justify leaving rentable homes empty as holding costs rise.
Baseline Financial director Ari Levinson said ordinary mortgaged investors rarely chose to leave perfectly rentable homes empty for long periods.
“Generally, I don’t find it anymore,” Mr Levinson said.
“The only ones that I find doing it are the ones that have quite a lot of wealth.”
He noted mortgage repayments, council rates, land tax and owners corporation fees had made leaving properties empty increasingly difficult to justify.
Many heavily leveraged investment properties were already recording negative cash flow, even while tenants were paying rent, he added.
Removing that income could create a substantial additional burden.
“It really would be quite a significant burden to not have any cash flow at all on the property,” Mr Levinson said.
“Most investors wouldn’t do that, especially if you’re trying to build a portfolio of two, three, four, five properties.”
“It’s just not sustainable to have that many properties sitting empty.”
Australians away from home on Census night can have their usual residence recorded as unoccupied, even when it is not genuinely vacant.
Mr Levinson said holiday and lifestyle homes could sit in a different financial category.
Some had been bought cheaply decades ago, inherited or passed through generations, leaving their owners with little or no debt.
Those owners could afford to keep a home for personal use without relying on weekly rental income.
But even wealthy owners were increasingly considering whether renting the property could help cover rising costs.
“They generally find they want to lease them out to at least pay the expenses on the property,” Mr Levinson said.
Some owners use short-stay accommodation to generate income while still keeping the property available for their own holidays.
“That’s not really a great investment strategy,” he said.
“That’s more of a lifestyle type of decision.”
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