Housing unaffordability at the statistical local area level: new estimates using spatial microsimulation

NATSEM is part of the way through a three-year Australian Research Council Linkage project on 'Regional dimensions: new models for analysis of the spatial effects of policy, socio-demographic and economic changes'. This 'regional linkages' project aims to develop and apply spatial microsimulation techniques to generate detailed synthetic small-area data for use as a decision support tool by state and territory governments. Stage one synthetic estimate output data from the project have been produced, comprising variables focussed on housing unaffordability and household income. This paper presents and reviews the small-area patterns of housing unaffordability of the stage one synthetic output. The paper also includes an overview of the scope and methodology of the regional linkages project, and of technical and methodological issues addressed in producing the synthetic estimates.