Inner-Melbourne suburbs have highest proportion of single-person households and need different housing stock

The location of single-person households can tell you a lot about a city.

St Kilda, St Kilda West, Carlton, Elwood and South Yarra have the highest proportion of single-person households in Melbourne, according to REIV analysis of the 2011 census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

It is interesting to note that, along with Carlton, the inner-southern bayside suburbs had the highest concentration of single-person households; and these trends had an important impact on development and demand for housing.

In St Kilda, St Kilda West, Carlton, Elwood and South Yarra over 40% of homes have only one resident.

New developments clearly respond to this demographic trend by building residences more suited to single people.

The data also shows that the further a suburb is from the CBD, the less likely it is to feature single-occupant households.

There is one interesting exception: the suburbs along the Belgrave/Lilydale train line contain a higher-than-average proportion of lone-resident households.

At the other end of the spectrum are the growth suburbs: Point Cook, Greenvale, Roxburgh Park, Doreen, Narre Warren South and Narre Warren North, for instance. In those suburbs fewer than 10% of homes have only one resident.

Such growth suburbs are highly popular with growing families.

In key regional centres such as Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo, the suburbs with above-average shares of lone-person households tend to be in central locations with better access to the V/Line train network. Of the three, Geelong has the highest number of suburbs (six) where over 35% of households were solo residents, compared wiith four suburbs in Ballarat and one in Bendigo.

To view related data in a clickable map visit www.reiv.com.au.