Average Mortgage by Age in Australia

The average mortgage for a 40-year-old in Australia is unavailable as an exact-age figure in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) age-band tables. For households with a reference person aged 35 to 44, mean principal outstanding on owner-occupied dwelling loans was $205,300 in 2019-20. That average includes households without that debt, so it isn’t the average balance among mortgage holders.

Average Mortgage for a 40-Year-Old in Australia

The ABS publishes a 35-to-44 age band, which contains age 40 but doesn’t isolate it. Its Household Income and Wealth age tables, released on 28 April 2022, report the $205,300 mean in Table 10.2. The survey period is 2019-20, and the dollars describe that period rather than today’s balances.

The unit is a household, grouped by its reference person’s age. Other household members can have different ages, and the debt figure covers the household’s loans for its owner-occupied dwelling. Loans for other properties appear in a separate row.

The denominator includes every household in the age band, including renters and outright owners with no owner-occupied dwelling loan. Table 10.3 reports that 51.4% of households in the same band own their home with a mortgage. Neither figure is an exact-age result for individual 40-year-old borrowers.

The Survey of Income and Housing includes 15,011 households, with 2,661 in the 35-to-44 band. The ABS methodology covers private dwellings and excludes very remote areas and non-private accommodation. It also excludes households in discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

These are weighted survey estimates, not a count of every Australian mortgage. The $205,300 estimate has a relative standard error of 4.3%, which measures sampling uncertainty relative to the estimate. The ABS also adjusts cells to protect confidentiality, so component figures can differ from totals.

Mortgage Debt and Payoff by Age

Mean owner-occupied dwelling loan debt and the share of households with a mortgage measure different things. The table below keeps both measures within the same 2019-20 survey and age bands. All amounts are Australian dollars.

Household reference person’s age	Mean owner-occupied dwelling loan principal across all households in band	Households owning with a mortgage	Households owning without a mortgage
25 to 34	$145,600	37.8%	2.9%
35 to 44	$205,300	51.4%	5.4%
45 to 54	$179,300	56.6%	15.2%
55 to 64	$84,800	43.0%	36.1%
65 to 74	$17,300	13.4%	68.1%

Source: ABS Household Income and Wealth, 2019-20, Tables 10.2 and 10.3, released on 28 April 2022. Each percentage uses all households in that age band as its denominator. The loan figures exclude the separate other-property loan category.

The 45-to-54 band has a higher mortgage-holder share than the 35-to-44 band, alongside a lower mean owner-occupied dwelling loan balance. That combination shows why the prevalence of mortgages and the amount owed need separate labels.

These tables don’t publish an average age at which Australians pay off their mortgage. Ownership without a mortgage records a household’s position at the survey date. It doesn’t record when debt ended, whether the household ever borrowed or when a current borrower expects to finish repayments.

An older group’s lower debt also doesn’t track the same borrowers through time. Different households occupy each age band. You can’t identify a payoff birthday from the age at which mortgage-free ownership becomes more common.

Use Supported Age Bands

Age-45 and age-50 mortgage enquiries both fall within the ABS 45-to-54 band. Table 10.2 gives that band’s mean owner-occupied dwelling loan principal as $179,300 across all households in 2019-20. It publishes neither an exact age-45 average nor an exact age-50 average.

A broker can explain the result this way: “The survey’s 45-to-54 household group averaged $179,300 in owner-occupied dwelling loan debt in 2019-20, including households without that debt.” Keep the age band and denominator beside the amount whenever you reuse it.

Don’t interpolate between bands or treat a band’s midpoint as a published result. Assigning the whole band’s average to everyone aged 50 creates precision the table doesn’t supply. Dividing a band into smaller ages also requires underlying observations and appropriate survey weights.

As at October 2026, the latest ABS Household Income and Wealth release still covers 2019-20. The ABS states that outputs from the 2023-24 Survey of Income and Housing won’t be released. Keep the historical survey year attached to these amounts.

Separate All Households From Mortgage Holders

An all-household mean spreads the relevant debt over households with and without that debt. A mortgage-holder mean restricts the denominator to the households that owe it. Those are different comparisons even when both use the word “average”.

In a hypothetical group of 100 households, 50 owe $300,000 each on their home and 50 have no home loan. The mean across all 100 is $150,000. The mean among the 50 mortgage holders is $300,000.

Before comparing statistics, identify the unit and debt scope. A person-level figure measures individuals, while a household figure can combine several adults’ finances. An income unit groups people who share income, which can differ from the whole household.

A property, loan and mortgagor are also distinct units. One property can secure several loans, and joint borrowers can share one loan. An average new loan measures lending at origination, whereas outstanding principal measures debt remaining at observation.

Don’t combine a current new-loan average with this historical age-band mean as one benchmark. The separate Australian mortgage averages guide explains new-loan and outstanding-balance measures.

Do Not Turn an Age Average Into a Lending Target

An age-band average cannot set a suitable mortgage balance or repayment for one client. It also cannot set their loan term, borrowing capacity or payoff date. The survey doesn’t account for that client’s financial position or objectives.

For an individual discussion, gather the following verified information.

• Income and expected changes in income.
• Living expenses and other ongoing commitments.
• Existing liabilities, including credit limits.
• Current mortgage balance and interest rate.
• Remaining loan term and repayment arrangements.
• The client’s objectives and retirement horizon.

Use those inputs to assess loan serviceability, meaning the ability to meet repayments under the lender’s assessment. Discuss the client’s mortgage payoff plan separately from the population benchmark.

Where retirement affects the proposed term, a broker can use Bulma’s Policy Advisor to compare lenders’ older-borrower policies and retain the quoted wording. The client’s evidence and the lender’s assessment decide the application. Record the age-band statistic as background, then base the lending discussion on the client’s verified circumstances.