First national data report on strata sector

Australia is home to 2.6 million strata title lots with an insured value of close to $1 trillion, reveals a first-of-its-kind report from the University of New South Wales.

The Australian National Strata Data Report highlights the economic value of the strata and community sector to the national economy and will be an invaluable tool for policy makers, the report’s authors say.

According to the report, there are 316,227 strata schemes and 2.58 million lots around Australia. Of those, 42 per cent have been registered since 2000.

The collective value of these strata properties is $995 billion.

More than 2.2 million people, around nine per cent of Australia’s population, live in apartments.

Less than half (43%) of apartment residents were born in Australia, and more apartment households rent (48%) than are owner occupied. Exactly half of all apartment residents are between 20-39 years old.

The report’s co-author, associate Professor Hazel Easthope from UNSW’s City Futures Research Centre, says collating national data has been a “huge undertaking”.

Until now, Australian strata data has been fragmented, held by state and territory agencies which each record the information differently, and by multiple companies who service the sector.

“The vast majority of private apartments in Australia, as well as many other attached properties, such as townhouses and commercial properties, are owned under strata title, and this is the first time we have had figures about the scale and value of the sector,” Easthope says.

The strata industry directly employs approximately 9,000 people. In 2017 it was serviced by more than three million callout trade jobs and around 440,000 services from professionals such as lawyers, valuers, engineers, accountants and insurers.

Erik Adriaanse, CEO of Strata Community Association, which funded the research, says the study will inform both those in the sector and policy makers.

Adriaanse says the report is a “huge opportunity” to “assess what the sector does, how big it is, how the economy benefits from the goods and services it supplies, and the extent these services contribute to national income”.