New analysis finds fewer than six in 10 Sydney households now own their home
Sydney's homeownership rate has fallen to 59.9%, its lowest point in roughly 70 years, according to new analysis by KPMG that draws on Census data, housing surveys, and rental bond records.
The figure marks a decline from 61.1% recorded in 2021 and represents the weakest ownership rate in the city since the 1950s.
Nationally, the rate edged down from 66.3% to 65.9% over the same period, with Sydney and regional New South Wales identified as the primary drivers of that fall.
"Sydney has gone backwards on homeownership by more than half a century," Terry Rawnsley (pictured right), urban economist at KPMG Australia.
"There's lots of schemes like the first home buyer deposit scheme, which I think is a good one across the country, but the challenge for Sydney is it just hasn't produced enough houses over the last 20 years. First-home buyers in Sydney are really just being constricted in the number of properties that they can even look to try and buy, even before affordability comes in."
Not all states recorded declines. Western Australia's ownership rate rose from 69.2% to 69.9% between 2021 and 2025, Queensland's from 63.9% to 64.9%, while Victoria held steady at 68.7%.
Estimated owner-occupier rate
By state/territory, 1996–2025
Source: KPMG
In Greater Sydney, the number of renter households grew from 703,553 to 786,802 over the four-year period — an increase of more than 83,000 households, or 11.8%. The share of households renting rose from 36.8% to 37.9%, meaning nearly two in five Sydney households now rent. Owner-occupied dwellings grew at an average annual rate of 1.6%, compared with 2.8% for rental households.
Sydney's median rent reached $800 per week in June, with houses commanding a median of $850 per week. "There's just so many households fighting over a limited number of rental properties in NSW," Rawnsley said.
He also pointed to a generational shift in internal migration patterns, with younger residents increasingly leaving Sydney for more affordable markets. "In the past, you might have people living in Sydney who were 55 or 60 moving to the Gold Coast to retire, now it's probably more that younger cohort are going, 'God, I'll never afford a home in Sydney'," Rawnsley concluded.
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