Of the 11.5 million people (aged 14+) living in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide, 3.75 million (32.4%) of them are renters—and almost 300,000 of these renters (7.9%) intend to buy a new or established house in the next year.

Roy Morgan Research interviewed almost 20,000 mainland state capital renters in the two years to September 2013 and discovered that while 42% of renters read community newspapers in an average week, this jumps to 48% among those who intend to buy a house in the next 12 months.

The highest proportional rise is among Sydney renters, who are 19% more likely to read a community newspaper once they intend to buy a house. Melbourne’s renters are 15% more likely; Perth’s and Adelaide’s are 14% more likely. Only in Brisbane is there no increase in the readership of local newspapers among potential home-buyers.

Over half of house-hunting renters in Sydney, Perth and Adelaide read community newspapers.

Readership of community newspapers: House-hunting renters vs renter average

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), October 2011 – September 2013, n=19,560 renters 14+ in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Perth’s renters are the most likely to be planning to buy a house this year (10.7%), followed by Melbourne (9.4%), Adelaide (9.1%), Brisbane (7.0%) and Sydney (5.9%).

Even though Sydney contains the highest number of renters overall (1.26 million), Melbourne has the most house-hunting renters: over 100,000 compared with Sydney’s 74,000.

Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan Research, says:

“Community Newspapers continue to play an important part in the new media landscape. These results suggest that potential home-buyers still value local newspapers as a core source for real estate news and listings.  

“48% of renters planning to buy a house read at least one local newspaper during the week, compared with just 35.3% who looked up real estate information online in an average four weeks.”

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About Roy Morgan Research

Roy Morgan Research is the largest independent Australian research company, with offices in each state of Australia, as well as in New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom. A full service research organisation specialising in omnibus and syndicated data, Roy Morgan Research has over 70 years’ experience in collecting objective, independent information on consumers.

In Australia, Roy Morgan Research is considered to be the authoritative source of information on financial behaviour, readership, voting intentions and consumer confidence. Roy Morgan Research is a specialist in recontact customised surveys which provide invaluable and effective qualitative and quantitative information regarding customers and target markets.

Margin of Error

The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.