Australia's housing bubble swallows economy

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) this week released data on Australia’s residential housing stock, which was valued at a record $11.6 trillion in the second quarter of 2025, equivalent to $1,017,000 per dwelling.

Total value of Australia's dwelling stock

The following chart compares the value of Australia’s dwelling stock to the country’s GDP. It shows that the entire residential housing stock was valued at 4.17 times the size of the Australian economy in the June quarter:

In comparison, the United States’s dwelling stock is valued at only around 1.6 times GDP.

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.

Australia’s housing bubble swallows economy