Lower prices draw support and concern
Australia’s housing debate has a clear tension: many people want lower prices to improve access, while homeowners worry about what a decline could mean for their biggest asset. Westpac’s latest Home Ownership Report also points to barriers beyond prices, from purchase costs to the location and supply of housing. The tension isn’t simply a disagreement between buyers and owners; a person can support more affordable homes and still fear a fall in the value of their own property.
More than two-thirds of Australians, 68 per cent, believe falling house prices would benefit the country. Yet 67 per cent are concerned values could drop further. The support is strongest among Gen Z respondents at 78 per cent, followed by Millennials at 69 per cent, Gen X at 67 per cent and Baby Boomers at 58 per cent. The figures show broad support for improved affordability, but the concern figure sits almost alongside it. That’s a reminder that public opinion here isn’t neatly divided into people who want prices down and people who want them up.
Homeowners share some of that support: 62 per cent say lower prices would be good for Australia. But mortgage holders are also the group most worried about further declines, with 75 per cent expressing concern. The split reflects how a change that could ease entry for buyers may also affect households carrying debt against their property. For a prospective buyer, a lower purchase price can mean a smaller hurdle; for a mortgaged owner, a decline can feel like a threat to the value backing a major household commitment. The report’s figures describe those competing perceptions, not how any individual household would fare.
Access remains the central pressure
Four in five Australians, or 82 per cent, say home ownership is completely out of reach for the average person. Among first home buyers, 65 per cent believe they’ll need an inheritance to buy. Those figures put the focus on the gap between aspiring buyers and the costs of entering the market. They also suggest that affordability is being understood as more than a question of whether prices move up or down: respondents are describing a barrier that can involve savings, income and the ability to meet costs before a purchase is completed.
Respondents identified several ways to improve access. More affordable homes in established suburbs led at 52 per cent, followed by lower stamp duty and other purchase costs at 48 per cent. Higher incomes and wage growth were cited by 39 per cent, while 31 per cent pointed to better transport links to outer suburbs and regional areas. The spread matters. It indicates that people see a range of obstacles, from the upfront expense of a transaction to the practical trade-offs involved when more affordable housing is farther from established locations.
The preference for affordable homes in established suburbs also points to a question of choice, not just supply in the abstract. A home’s price may be lower in one area, but its location affects how useful that option feels to a buyer. Better transport links could change that calculation for some households, while lower purchase costs could address a different part of the entry barrier. Neither measure, by itself, resolves the full set of concerns reflected in the responses.
Affordability has several moving parts
Westpac chief executive, consumer, Carolyn McCann said the findings capture the competing interests in the housing discussion. “Affordability remains a significant challenge for many Australians, and these findings suggest many view lower prices as part of the solution,” she said, while acknowledging that concern about falling values is understandable when a home is often a household’s largest financial asset. That framing is useful, though it doesn’t make the trade-off disappear: the same price movement can be welcomed as an opening by one household and feared as a loss by another.
McCann said housing markets move in cycles and buying a home is a long-term commitment. Westpac economists expect national property prices to rise by 3 per cent in 2027, she added, after prices have fallen. That forecast sits alongside the report’s account of current attitudes, rather than settling the question those attitudes raise. A projected national movement also doesn’t, on its own, describe how affordability or values might differ between homes and locations.
Her broader point is that access depends on more than sale prices: the homes available, where they’re located, upfront costs and buyer incomes all shape who can enter the market. For the industry, the report suggests affordability remains a question of both price and choice. Here’s the thing: measures of public sentiment can show where pressure is felt, but they don’t tell us which single response would satisfy people facing different constraints.
What the findings mean for the debate
This is more significant than it looks: even homeowners, whose assets could lose value if prices fall, include a majority who say lower prices would benefit Australia. At the same time, the high level of concern among mortgage holders makes it hard to treat falling prices as an uncomplicated public good. The findings capture a public trying to reconcile access for new buyers with the financial exposure of existing owners.
If you’re working in this space, the report’s mix of responses is a prompt to look beyond a single headline measure of affordability. Price is central, but respondents also point to purchase costs, wages, housing location and transport. (And this is the part most people overlook.) An option may be more affordable on paper yet still fail to meet a buyer’s needs if the location or travel connections don’t work for them.
That said, the survey results don’t establish how people would rank these priorities when faced with a specific choice, or how a change in one factor would affect the others. They do show that the debate isn’t reducible to a simple demand for cheaper homes. The unresolved issue is how access can improve without ignoring the concern households already carrying mortgage debt have about their asset values. A harder question, and one the figures leave open.