How do we build homes, not houses?
How Australians live hasn’t changed radically for 30 years. But several trends will coalesce to drive rapid transformation over the next decade, says social researcher Rebecca Huntley.
An author and independent researcher, Huntley (pictured) was director of Australia’s longest-running social trends report for nearly a decade and will be heading to Darwin in September to present at The Property Congress.
Huntley has spent countless hours on couches around Australia listening in on conversations about housing affordability, job security and the cost of living, racism and immigration, generation gaps and parenting, attitudes to politicians and more.
She’s also the author of several books, most recently ‘Still Lucky’, a “wholeheartedly positive” account of the people of Australia.
She remains optimistic about Australia’s future, although she says that its future will be very different to its past.
Radical changes to housing will be driven by retiring baby boomers, who are now in their early 70s and are beginning to demand very different housing options to those experienced by their parents a generation earlier.
“We’ll be seeing more variety, whether people choose to age in place, move into retirement villages or take up stock that wasn’t designed for retirement but is adapted to suit their needs,” Huntley says.
Expect greater innovation as “people create options for themselves and demand all levels of government to work together to make these options a reality,” she says. Picture commune-style living and co-operative group homes, eco-retreats and luxury retirement resorts.
At the other end of the housing lifecycle are twenty-somethings who are “rethinking whether their single largest investment will be the family home”.
Huntley has “absolutely no doubt” housing choice for younger Australians will diversify as more people “question whether owning a home is a pre-requisite to marriage and children, and instead look for secure rental accommodation”. Others will “raise their families in an apartment like millions of people around the world do”.
Innovations in small houses, for example, may intersect these trends and meet the needs of both groups.
Moving towards multi-generational living
Australian attitudes to multi-generational housing is also changing. Huntley grew up in an Italian-Australian community where “everyone had a granny flat out the back and four generations coexisted in one family home”.
“But there was an antipathy among people from Anglo-Australian backgrounds to more than two generations living in the same house. Today, we are seeing more intergenerational collaboration.”
Housing affordability and job demands are putting extra pressures on young people to stay home for longer, and for older people to provide more live-in support for grandchildren. But multi-generational living is also driven by migration.
“We have more migrants coming from countries where housing arrangements are very different. And this will change the way we live,” she explains.
While Australia will be home to almost 38 million people by 20, urban dwellers won’t settle for cookie-cutter replicas of Asia’s megacities.
“Because of our environment and how much we value the outdoors, Australians will be looking for different kinds of apartment living to that found in other parts of the world,” Huntley explains.
We’ll demand more green space, for example, and we’ll put pressure on local councils to provide more medium density options.
Learning to do more with less
“While the economy and society will change, the human need to raise children and care for others in the community won’t. People are going to look at how they can create communities that support them while doing more with less.”
Huntley says she’s been listening to Australians’ conversations about housing for many years, and “governments can no longer ignore these conversations because it’s loud and clear from the electorate about what they want”.
“I talk to fully-employed couples with no children – people working in retail or teaching – who wonder if they will ever be able to afford a house. That’s depressing,” she says.
“While we hear stories about the Australian property bubble bursting, there is not a lot of belief in the community that it will happen any time soon – or that people in their 20s will be able to afford a three-bedroom house in a metropolitan area.
“How can a neighbourhood thrive when a childcare worker or barista needs to travel for three hours? This is a big nut to crack – and one which requires governments, the housing industry and the community to work together.”
Rebecca Huntley will join a stellar line up of speakers at The Property Congress, including RetireAustralia’s Alison Quinn, CoreLogic’s Greg Dickason, TOGA’s Fabrizio Perilli and Frasers Property Australia’s Simone Dyer, as they explore how to build homes for future generations. Register for The Property Congress today.