‘Eustan’, Grafton Street, Woollahra, New South Wales 1909 National Archives of Australia

Achieved in the Twentieth Century

Percentage of Australians who owned or were purchasing their homes, 1900s-1990s

Outright owner and purchasing:
1911 - 49%, 1991 - 72%

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Social Trends, 1994, Canberra, 1994, and censuses.

In the 1911 census, 45 per cent of Australian households owned their own homes free of debt. The remarkably high level of ownership, generally of cottages, was the great Australian achievement early this century, and has continued to the present.

Michael Jones, political scientist, The Australian Welfare State: Evaluating Social Policy, Sydney, 1996