Fast facts on affordable housing

Affordable housing is housing that costs no more than 30% (often no higher than 25%) of a household’s income.

Housing is appropriate when it matches the needs of the household including climate suitability.

Council is working with for-purpose developers and housing providers, advocating for homes that are cheap to heat and cool and work for people of all abilities and ages.

• The median house price is $740,000 (based on figures across 325 sales in 2022)
• In 2022 the median rent for a house per week in the shire was $455
• 14.2% of households are experiencing mortgage stress
• 47.1% of rental households are experiencing rental stress
• 5,219 more people will call the shire home by 2041.

View our Housing Profile

Our role is to facilitate the provision of affordable housing through the planning system, brokerage, partnerships and advocacy. Council does not provide or manage affordable housing.

In late 2021, Council appointed a dedicated Housing Solutions Broker, Clare Richards, to help us identify opportunities for boosting affordable housing in our Shire.

We are working in partnership with regional community housing providers and others to identify a range of responses to affordable housing.

Council is identifying suitable State Government land in the Shire that could be developed for affordable housing.

We are connecting private landholders interested in delivering affordable housing on their land to for-purpose affordable housing developers.

We are investigating developing a charitable Mount Alexander Affordable Housing Trust to hold land and funds to provide affordable housing in perpetuity in our shire.

There are over 800 households in our shire without affordable housing.

50% of group households and 37% of single parent and lone person households renting in our shire are in poverty.

By March 2022, only 1.7% of rentals were affordable to a two-parent family with two children on Centrelink benefits. 

This means that our residents face a higher risk of homelessness or insecure housing if their income, household or other circumstances change.

Limited affordable housing also prevents the shire's key workers from living in the area they work. Over 80% of businesses survey respondents in 2022 indicated housing availability and affordability were impacting their business.

It is also hard for young people to start out on their own in the area they grew up.

Without intervention, the shortage of affordable housing will only increase.

Housing affordability is already causing locals to leave the shire, businesses are struggling to find and retain staff and more households are under financial strain.

In our shire 72% of households are 1-2 people but only 27% of homes are 0-2 bedrooms. This leaves a big gap where people are paying for more bedrooms than they need, or simply can’t afford to rent or buy a home at all.

We are also an ageing community - the median age is 51 and over 44% of our residents are over 55.

Our shire needs a significant increase in 1-2 bedroom small permanent homes to meet demand.  These homes need to be designed for people of all abilities and ages so people can safely and comfortably age in place.

The best way to achieve this many small homes is to deliver more townhouses, units, co-housing and medium density apartment homes.

Council is working with for-purpose developers and housing providers, advocating for delivery of smaller homes that are cheap to heat and cool, and suit people of all abilities and ages.

In December 2023 the Victoria Government announced amended legislation that makes it easier to build a small second home in residential and rural areas across Victoria. The aim of the change is to give people more housing choice and also to boost housing supply.

The updates mean a small second home up to 60 square metres, also known as a granny flat, secondary dwelling or an accessory dwelling unit, no longer requires a planning permit in most cases where there are no flooding, environmental or other special planning controls.

A small second home still requires a building permit, to meet siting, amenity, design and safety requirements – and cannot be subdivided or separately sold off from the main home.

More detail about this are available on the Small second homes page of the Victorian Government website.