Monday, November 30, 2009

Australia’s love for private space

A news item making rounds in the media this morning is that Australians have the largest houses in the entire world (statistically speaking). A research commissioned by CommSec and conduced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics concluded that the average floor area of new dwellings in Australia hit a record 214.6 square metres in the last financial year. In the US the average size of a residential dwelling is only 201.5 square metres which still compared favourably to Denmark which has Europe’s biggest dwellings with an average floor area of 137sq m, Greece (126sq m) or the Netherlands (115.5sq m). Homes in the UK are the smallest in Europe at 76sq m.

Australia's largest dwellings were built in Victoria with an average 224.5sq m floor area, followed by Western Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory, NSW, Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT. However, the biggest houses are in NSW where the average new house built in 2008-09 was 262.9sq m, and in Queensland (253sq m). We love the space but does it makes us happier? Just think about the cleaning…

2 comments:

houses Toronto said...

Interesting. I never knew there was actually some kind of research on the size of floor area in different countries, wow. Seems like Europeans don't really like big houses. Less time spent cleaning - quite smart.

Julie

All Things Spatial said...

I grew up in Europe in 38sq m flat, as most of my friends and colleagues. I didn't do us too much harm!

One argument for big houses in Australia is that now kids stay longer with parents (into their mid 30's not uncommon!). But it could also be the result of developers' marketing ploy to offer bigger houses further from the city center. For many, especially families with small kids, the choice is obvious - better bigger house in the suburbs than small flat in the city.