2017-04-11 P&E Agenda Attachment 1 to Item 1 Housing Needs Assessment

         There is a high proportion of detached houses, relative to other comparative tourism-
          oriented LGAs1;
         Some 24% of all occupied dwellings in Noosa Shire are usually occupied by one person
          living alone, and 58.4% by a person living alone or a couple;
         The highest proportion of two person households live in 3-bedroom dwellings, with the
          second highest proportion in 4-bedroom dwellings;
         A significant proportion of small households are living in large dwellings. It is however
          noted that particularly in an affluent community, a proportion of households may choose
          to live in larger dwellings than seemingly required, or this may occur by circumstance;
         Housing stress is high in Noosa Shire relative to Brisbane or Queensland, but similar to
          comparative LGAs:
            o   At 34.5%, the proportion of low income households that are renting and
                experiencing rental stress is higher than other comparative LGAs (except for Fraser
                Coast), and higher than Brisbane and Queensland;
            o   15.8% of low income households that are paying a mortgage were experiencing
                mortgage stress, similar to the other comparative LGAs, but significantly higher than
                Brisbane or Queensland;
            o   Low income households experiencing either rental stress or mortgage stress made
                up around 16% of all households in other comparative LGAs in 2011, but this was a
                significantly higher proportion than for Brisbane with 11.3% or Queensland with
                12%.
         Noosa Shire appears less affordable than all comparative LGAs, Brisbane City and
          Queensland:
            o   Accommodation affordability is impacted by both low median incomes and high
                median accommodation costs;
            o   Median rents for flats/ units in the Shire are fairly similar to the State but rents for
                houses are higher than the State;
            o   There has been a declining trend in rental vacancy rates over the last five years from
                around 4-5% to around 1-2%;
            o   The median dwelling sale price in Noosa Shire has remained higher than the State
                at all times between 1998 and 2015;
            o   In 2011 median household income was almost $200 below the SEQ Region and
                almost $300 below the State per week.
            o   Between 5-10 additional percentage points of income are needed in Noosa Shire to
                afford a dwelling compared to the next most unaffordable comparative LGA
                considered (which for most indicators was the Gold Coast).




1
    Fraser Coast, Douglas Shire and the Gold Coast




Briggs & Mortar Pty Ltd | Page 2