The Impact of Housing Grant on the Inequality in Homeownership: Analyzing Australia’s HomeBuilder Grant

Amid the ongoing discussion about the extent of the inequality in homeownership, the introduction of the HomeBuilder grant in Australia generated further questions about the extent to which government policy may affect this inequality. This study aims to contribute to the discussion by analyzing the impact of this grant on the homeownership rate for households in different income quintiles as well as for single parent households, a cohort with very low homeownership rates. This study applied a microsimulation model to data from the Survey of Income and Housing, conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to examine these impacts. The results indicate that the grant was not likely to have increased the inequality in homeownership as it increased ownership among households in the second lowest income quintile. However, the eligibility criteria would need to be improved to reduce the inequality in homeownership, especially to allow more single parents to access the grant.