Home and away from home: the urban-regional dynamics of second home ownership in Australia

Abstract

Despite the growth of domestic and international markets in second homes, there has been relatively little research on this issue in the Australian context. Yet several features of this context present interesting ways of extending the debates about second home ownership that have characterised social and policy discussions to date in the UK and Europe. In this paper we consider the overall extent, regional distribution and broader impacts of a form of second home ownership that has risen rapidly and which is facilitated by a range of fiscal and macro-economic settings. We present the results of two national surveys that asked about the ownership of holiday homes and which reveal extensive ownership across a range of social groups. We then move to a discussion of a case study in the island state of Tasmania and to the growing commodification of its holiday ‘shack’ market to add depth to discussions about the localised ramifications of second home ownership. We conclude by discussing our results in the context of the international literature and by considering the public policy issues that our data raise.

Keywords:

• second homes
• urban
• regional
• shack
• rural gentrification

Notes

1. Home ownership is dropped as a predictor in Table 4, model 5, as it often comprises a large component of household net worth. While again an asset, and in some cases contributing substantially to household wealth, second home ownership can also contribute negatively to household wealth through debt, so household wealth is seen as an appropriate predictor of second home ownership for the regression models. The magnitude of the Pearson's correlation between the HILDA-derived household net worth variable used as the wealth variable and second home ownership supports this approach, as it is only moderate at r = 0.37. The correlations between the wealth quartile dummy variables used in the regression models are also weak to moderate (quartile 1 r = − 0.21; quartile 2 r = − 0.14; quartile 3 r = − 0.02; quartile 4 r = 0.34).

2. An Australian Commonwealth Government tax subsidy that partially offsets losses on the rental income of an investment property where this is lower than the costs of servicing a mortgage. The purpose of the subsidy is to stimulate demand for investment properties and to increase the returns on such properties by lowering these costs in the early years of purchase.