Paper: Profile of tenants in NSW

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census 2006. Tenants' Union of NSW special data request

Basic profile

• Total NSW residents: 6,549,178
• Total NSW residents living in rental housing ('renters'): 1,703,833 (26 per cent) and growing.

Mainstream rental housing

Ninety-five per cent of NSW renters live in mainstream rental housing.

• Private rental – real estate agent: 941,008 (58 per cent)
• Private rental – private landlord, others: 410,040 (25 per cent)
• Social housing – Housing NSW: 238,544 (15 per cent)
• Social housing – community housing: 32,894 (2 per cent).

Other rental

• Boarding houses: 3,109 residents (0.2 per cent of all renters)
• Caravan/residential parks: 21,681 residents (1.3 per cent)
• Manufactured housing estates: 22,416 (1.3 per cent)
• Retirement villages: 34,141 (2 per cent).

Private rental demographics

• 26 per cent of all residents are renters
• 57 per cent of all Aboriginal residents are renters
• 37 per cent of all residents born overseas are renters
• 22 per cent of residents who need assistance due to a disability are renters.

Renters' households

• 61 per cent of renter households are families – of these, 67 per cent include children
• 30 per cent of renter households are lone persons
• 9 per cent of renter households are group households.

Age profile

• 16 per cent of persons living in rental housing are children aged nine years and under
• 14 per cent are aged 10–20
• 39 per cent are aged 20–39
• 25 per cent are aged 40–64
• 6 per cent are aged over 65.

Renting and language spoken at home

Over one fifth (397,632) of renters in NSW speak a language other than English at home.

• Chinese language (20 per cent)
• Arabic (17 per cent)
• Vietnamese (7 per cent)
• Other languages (14 per cent) including Australian Indigenous languages, European languages, Persian, Indonesian, Tamil, Hindi, African languages.

Eight per cent of renters in NSW speak English not well or not at all.