Australia beats the US for the world’s biggest houses

The average US home, at 201 square metres, is 13 square metres smaller than its Australian equivalent.

However, while other countries have smaller footprints, some have fewer people living in each household.

In Australia, the average household size is 2.5 people, with 49.9 per cent of Aussies living in two- to three-person households.

This number is roughly on par with the US and Canada, which have average household sizes of 2.49 and 2.25 people respectively.

Over in Europe, Denmark has a substantially smaller dwelling footprint, with the average Danish home coming in at just 137 square metres.

Despite houses being smaller, however, almost 40 per cent of homes are occupied by just one person. Just 1.2 per cent of Danish households are comprised of six or more people.

Aussie home ownership lags

The study also compared nations according to rates of home ownership, and found that Australia fares poorly compared to comparable countries.

With just 66.3 per cent of Australians owning their home, Australia ranks third-worst out of 10 countries.

Only New Zealand (64.5 per cent) and the US (65.9 per cent) have lower rates of home ownership than Australia.

At the other end of the spectrum, 81.9 per cent of people in Malta own their own home, while eight in 10 Mexicans are home owners.

In Luxembourg and Greece, about seven in 10 residents own their home – on par with the goal recently set by the Real Estate Institute of Queensland for 2032.

While the study showed that Australia still has a long way to go until we achieve higher housing density, there are signs that the traditional low-density landscape of Australian suburbs may be about to change.

In Sydney, 31 suburbs have been identified as sites for medium- and high-density development, with the state government planning to build over 170,000 new houses in years to come.

Seven of the named suburbs have already released rezoning plans to transform these historically sprawling suburbs into compact, high-density hubs for work, leisure, and transport.

With opinions on densification split across generational lines, Australia may see varied responses to our changing urban landscapes in the years to come.