Income-seeking Australians turn to shared living spaces
Shared living spaces in Australia are becoming increasingly popular as homeowners transform their homes, gardens, and garages to pay off their properties and foster a sense of community. One renovation specialist believes the younger generation's global outlook has helped encourage the trend, with young buyers looking to enter the property market viewing shared living spaces as a way of sharing the risk of property purchases. 

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GEELONG homeowners are transforming their back yards in an effort to pay off their properties and foster a sense of community.

And the shared living trend is spreading across the state, with ABS data showing the number of people per household has increased to 2.59.

Caroline Vass, from Smart Choice Property Development, a renovation and subdivision expert, said the benefits were twofold: to establish a sense of community and to share the ever-increasing cost of living and property.

“You hear more people talking about it, with property prices going up, people need to be more creative with how they use land,” Ms Vass said.

“We’ve got a big Baby Boomer generation, people are thinking of how they can leave the busy lifestyle they’re leading, but also be there to support their parents.”

The data shows 78 per cent of all households in Australia have one or more bedrooms more than the household requires­.

Off the back of this, Ms Vass believes a burgeoning global culture has influenced Aus­tralians, with more people travelling and understanding how other cultures live.

“With the younger generation, they’re seeing if they buy a house they can share it, and they’re getting into the property market, but they don’t have to share all the risk themselves,” she said.

According to CoreLogic data, Geelong has a 29.8 per cent population of non-family households, with an average of 2.5 people per household.

“If you’re wanting to be in premium suburbs like Newtown the land entry is quite high,” Ms Vass said.

“More people are thinking how to use property, as the cost is getting more expensive.”

Robin and Hannah Miles have just listed their house at 5 Ballater Ave, Newtown, for sale after years of co-living with Mrs Miles’ parents.

“We bought the place and the double garage was a completely separate unit, it was joined on to the house, so we added an ensuite and a lounge area and it shares the front and back garden,” Mr Miles said.



“We were just doing it for the in-laws to be honest, and also to build it in a way that gave us the possibility of doing whatever we wanted to do with it in the future. There are loads of options for it — rent it out to a student, Airbnb, a separate property, a workspace.”

Bill Ethell and Edna Osztreicher were more focused on the social aspect when they developed their property into two residences at 17 Clonard Ave, Geelong West, and are now looking to lease one. “Dual occupancy residential is gaining favour around the place,” Mr Ethell said.

“We built two houses, one of them we live in, the other one we sold to a friend who’s now moved out and we’re looking at now using it.”

Creating co-living spaces isn’t just for homeowners, with appeal for investors as well.

“It makes sense for affordability, but from an investment point of view, you’re manufacturing more money out of the land because you’re not using it for one purpose,” Ms Vass said.