Aspiring Australian homeowners are rethinking their housing choices.
The path to home ownership is evolving for first home buyers, with more choosing apartments and units, looking to regional areas and taking different pathways into the market, according to the latest CommBank lending data.
Apartments and units accounted for 44 per cent of first home purchases in 2025-26, up from 32 per cent five years earlier, while the share buying houses fell 13 per cent to 55 per cent.
Aspiring owners are also thinking more creatively, with about 56 per cent joining financial forces with a partner, friend or family member to get a foot on the property ladder.
First home buyers look to the regions
The share of regional purchases rose from 20 per cent to 23 per cent in 2025-26, while inner-metro buying remained stable at 24 per cent.
CommBank data shows looking beyond major cities can pay dividends, with the average regional first home buyer mortgage about 17 per cent lower than in metro areas ( $503,000 in regional vs $608,000 in metro areas).
Finding another way into the market
Newlyweds Matt and Roshen Panecasio are still pinching themselves after finding a house and land package in their price range in Stream Hill, near Wollongong.
The couple are building a three-bedroom house on a 300sqm block, securing construction and land loans through the government’s five per cent deposit scheme for the $885,000 package after discovering the traditional quarter-acre block was out of reach.
The couple made sacrifices to grow an $80,000 deposit, which factored in a buffer, including living in a family member’s granny flat, and with Mr Panecasio’s parents for the last two years.
PropTrak data shows it now takes an average of 5.9 years for a median-income household to save a 20 per cent deposit , with the average first-home buyer deposit dropping to roughly 16 per cent, and an 84 per cent loan-to-value ratio.
More pathways for aspiring buyers
CommBank home lending specialist Alicia Till said first home buyers were becoming more “open-minded” when house-hunting.
She said there were more supports available than aspiring buyers might realise.
“Government schemes and Lender Mortgage Insurance can help eligible customers overcome the deposit hurdle, while we’ve also introduced more flexibility in how we assess HELP debt for eligible customers and offer other options such as guarantor lending and Property Share (a co-ownership option),” she said
This article is part of The Home Front series supported by Commonwealth Bank and was first published by The Daily Telegraph.
