An apartment suburb of smaller homes
Dee Why is a suburb of flats. Of its occupied homes, 82% are flats or apartments, above the 22% across New South Wales, while separate houses account for 15%, below the state's 66%. Townhouses, terraces or semi-detached houses come to 2%, below the 12% across NSW. The figures suggest apartment buildings sit at the centre of how people in Dee Why live.
The bedroom counts lean the same way. Some 77% of homes in Dee Why have two bedrooms or fewer, above the 30% across the state. Three-bedroom homes are 13%, below NSW's 35%, and homes with four or more bedrooms are 9%, below the 34% across New South Wales. On these figures, smaller homes are more common in Dee Why than across the state, and larger ones less so.
On Census night, 8% of private dwellings in Dee Why were unoccupied, below the 9% across New South Wales. The Census counted a single night, so the figure says nothing about why any home was empty or for how long, only that, on that night in 2021, the share in Dee Why sat below New South Wales.
Rent above the state, and agents as landlords
Renting stands out, and the figures are plain about it: 47% of households in Dee Why rent, above the 33% across New South Wales. Of those renting households, 81% rent from a landlord the ABS records as a real estate agent, above the state's 69%. Median rent is $550 a week, above the $420 across NSW.
Set against the median weekly income of all households here, renters or not, the median weekly rent comes to 26% on this page's working. Across New South Wales it is 23%, so Dee Why sits above the state. Median household income is $2,106 a week, above the $1,829 across NSW.
Owning without a loan is less common here: 21% of households own their home outright, below the 32% across the state. Those paying off a mortgage make up 29%, below NSW's 33%, and the median mortgage repayment is $2,457 a month, above the $2,167 across New South Wales. On these figures, owning outright was a smaller part of household life here than across the state.
Younger residents, smaller households
Of people aged five and over in Dee Why, 43% lived at the same address five years earlier, according to one 2021 question about where they lived in 2016. Across New South Wales the share was 54%, so Dee Why sits below the state.
The suburb of Dee Why was home to 23,354 people at the 2021 Census. Its median age is 36 years, below the 39 across NSW, suggesting younger residents than across the state. An average household holds 2.3 people, below the 2.6 across New South Wales, which suggests smaller households in its homes.