2023 Census Hamilton Home ownership in SA2 Areas
Western Heights is reliably a neighbourhood of home owners (68% owner occupied). In the current housing environment, for a well-established neighbourhood to maintain a high home ownership percentage is not normal. The trend for new neighbourhoods is for high ownership rates, combined with a low median age and high incomes for the first decade: then we see changes in at least two of these measures. Western Heights’ median age of 39 years (36.8 in 2001) is well above the Hamilton median age of 33.2 years (30.7 in 2001). Median income is a healthy $49.9k ($39.3k in 2023), well above Hamilton’s $42.2 ($27.7k in 2023), but now under the 11,000 dollar-plus difference it had in 2013 ( $39.3k compared to Hamilton’s $27.7k).
Greenhill Park is still a developing area, which does not include a corporate retirement village. It has one of the highest ownership rates of 69%, well above Hamilton’s 46%, a young median age of 32.1 years and is one of Hamilton’s highest median income areas at $57.5k.
Te Rapa South and Flagstaff South have high median ages of 77.7 years and 41.7 years respectively. The number of corporate housing developments for the elderly in these neighbourhoods hints at people believing they own their dwellings. To explain, the Te Rapa South Census states that homes are 75% owner occupied, but the fact that the area has one of Hamilton’s lowest incomes ($26.3K) suggests there could be something amiss here. The area has two retirement villages: Bupa Foxbridge Care Home (link) and Forest Lake Gardens Metlifecare Retirement Village (link). Both provide ‘Occupation Right Agreement’ (ORA) information on their websites. An ‘ORA is your licence to occupy’ (Metlifecare link again). What is a ‘licence to occupy’ or ORA? The Citizens Advice Bureau (link) tells us: ‘When you “buy” a license to occupy, you are paying for the right to live in the unit and use the village facilities, until you sell it back to the retirement village operator, or your death. You do not actually own the unit’ (my emphasis). Here I think census data for home ownership should be read as a possible maximum. The census data line says ‘Dwelling owned or partly owned’ so it seems that people in ORA dwellings are stating they partly own the dwelling. The Census definition for a rental is ‘A leased private dwelling is a rented dwelling for which the owner has granted another person or group of people exclusive possession for an agreed time period.’ (Link-2013 Census definitions and forms p.30).
Fitzroy at 69% is another high ‘dwelling owned or partly owned’ neighbourhood. It does include Sommerset retirement village on Dixon Rd, where ‘All Summerset homes are sold under a licence to occupy’ (link), but here the area does have a reasonably young median age of 35.5 years, and an above average income of $45.5k.
Two neighbourhoods to watch are Rototuna East and Flagstaff North East. They both have median incomes well above Hamilton’s overall level, yet home ownership percentages have been falling over the past decade: Rototuna East 56% 2001, 52% 2013, 49% 2023; Flagstaff North East 66% 2001, 58% 20113, 57% 2023. The decline has slowed in the past half decade and 57% ownership in Flagstaff North East is still high, but these two areas are dropping out of the higher-ranked ownership areas.
Posts on 2023 Census - median incomes, Age, Density, Renting