Ballarat suburbs where homes are owned outright

Lake Wendouree tops the ranking, where 51.8% of homes are owned outright — no mortgage against them (581 dwellings). Buninyong and Mount Helen follow. These 15 suburbs came from a field of 21 eligible Ballarat suburbs.

Each Ballarat suburb is ranked by the share of its occupied private dwellings owned without a mortgage in the 2021 Census. The denominator is every dwelling whose tenure was reported — owned outright, owned with a mortgage and rented, added together — because the Census publishes a count per tenure type and no total. Only suburbs with at least 2,000 residents are included.

Owner-occupied counts everyone who owns the home they live in, mortgage or not. This counts only those who owe nothing on it. A suburb can be almost entirely owner-occupied and still be mostly mortgaged, so the two lists are not the same list.

Usually that it is established and that people have stayed: paying off a mortgage takes decades, so outright ownership concentrates where residents are older and turnover is low. It is a description of who lives there now, not a measure of how desirable or affordable the suburb is.

The figures are from the 2021 Census, the most recent available until results from the August 2026 Census are released in 2027. The top 15 is recomputed whenever we refresh the census data.