City has 31% ownership, rest of Melbourne has 76%
An interesting statistic from The Age: Only 31% of dwellings in the city are owner-occupied (the rest are investor-owned rentals). This compares with 76% owner-occupied in the rest of metropolitan Melbourne. And 82% of city dwellings are residential apartments (that’s right, the ones I don’t recommend you buy right now 
They project population growth of 124% by 2021 (about 5.1% pa), with 186% growth in the Docklands area (about 6.8% pa). Other stats of interest (from the council’s summary and full report) include:
- 52% of city residents are aged 18 – 34 compared to 26% in the wider metropolitan area (= what happens when they return home, or stay home longer? (as they are))
- 23% of city residents are full time students (compared to a metro average of 9%) (= what happens when international student numbers drop? (as they are))
- City investors may be earning around 1% less than their metropolitan counterparts (average mortgage of $300/week, rent of $238/week vs. $207 and $166)
- One bedroom apartments are aimed mainly at students, a number have 50%-75% students (mostly from overseas)
- The city is the third fastest growing municipality (6.8% pa since 2001), behind Melton (10.5%) and Wyndham (7.4%) and followed by Cardinia (5.1%) and Casey (5.0%)
- 63% of city residents used the Internet in the week prior to the 2001 Census, compared to 41% of metropolitan residents
In addition to depending on two markets that are seeing significant contraction, there is one statement I find particularly disturbing — the major drive of population growth is ‘the very large number of new dwellings that are expected to be constructed’ (mostly apartments). The drive for growth is supply, not demand?