02 Aug Online Housing Research Tool
While doing some research for a project recently I found this really useful website called Housing In Victoria. It has been set up to provide data on housing and housing affordability indicators. It is an interactive website with a number of different indicators and data sets that can be selected. You can also select what area type and location, including down to suburb level for some information. Information can be displayed as tables, graphs or maps. I found it a fantastic resource to get high quality, relevant information.
The only downside is that only some of the Victorian municipalities are currently participating which significantly limits the information available. The inner city is well represented and includes Melbourne, Yarra, Stonnington, Hobsons Bay, Port Phillip and Moreland. There are some outer metropolitan municipalities including Casey, Hume, Maribyrnong and Brimbank as well as several rural shires.
On the website there is a comprehensive Help Section which provides details on the Housing Affordability Indicators used on the website, including how they were calculated. So it would be possible to replicate the data for other municipalities, if you had access to the data sets used (many of which are publicly available).
If you are needing to do some research on housing affordability or are interested in this topic then this website will likely prove a useful resource. Since I first used this website there has been an increase in the number of participating councils, so hopefully more will get on board in the future.