Melbourne and Sydney are experiencing the strongest growth in apartment construction in years.

But the vast majority of developments contain only one and two-bedroom apartments. Three-bedroom apartments are occasionally offered. On rare occasions, four-bedroom apartments are included in a development, but they are generally marketed as ‘luxury penthouses’, and have a price tag to match.

As a property journalist with three children myself, I could count on one hand the number of apartments I have written about that would comfortably accommodate my family.

The shortage of medium-to-large sized apartments will mean that certain sections of the community will not benefit from the increased housing supply in capital cities.

New apartment developments are not meeting the needs of families with three or more children, families who have an elderly parent living with them, country families who sometimes like to have family to stay, or even busy families who’d love the option of having a live-in au pair, which can be cheaper than paying nannies by the hour.

These family situations are not uncommon, yet they are not being catered for in most new apartment developments.

Australia’s last census, conducted in 2011, showed that 72% of all households in Australia are family households. Of those family households, 20% have three or more children.

The number jumps to 60% when you include families with two or more children.

These statistics don’t include non-dependant children over the age of 17 years, so the actual numbers are probably higher, considering the trend towards children staying at home for longer while they complete tertiary education.

Other cities around the world have better apartment accommodation for medium-to-large families, which provides families with greater flexibility.

In Singapore, it’s very common for apartments to have four or five bedrooms. Family-friendly facilities in Singapore’s apartment developments, such as pools, playgrounds, and exercise equipment, are common.

In Barcelona’s Eixample district, lauded for generations as a design mecca, the lovely old apartments commonly have three or four bedrooms, and often a maid’s room for good measure.

In Australia, the pressure of skyrocketing property prices in capital cities could be alleviated if more three or four-bedroom apartments, designed for families, were built. Not the luxury penthouse type of four-bedroom apartment, but the roomy, practical type.

As it currently stands, larger families are more susceptible than others to being priced out of the market and forced to rent.

If we really want to build more vibrant, closely populated cities, with convenient links to work and leisure, we need developers and councils to design and plan for families – of all shapes and sizes.

By Caroline Egan

See also:

The next step towards apartment dwelling