Buying a house with a home loan is no more of a strain than it used to be and may even be easier for lower income families than in the past.New estimates on housing costs by the Australian Bureau of Statistics put the mean (average) weekly housing costs for all households at A$265 in 2011/12.For owners without a mortgage, the average weekly housing costs were $40, which represented three per cent of average gross weekly income for these households. Owners with a mortgage paid an average of $432 per week in housing costs, which represented 18 per cent of their average gross weekly income, with about one quarter of this amount being used to repay the principal outstanding on the loan. Households renting from private landlords paid an average of $347 per week, which represented 20 per cent of their average gross income. Households renting from state and territory housing authorities paid an average of $136 per week, which represented 19 per cent of their average gross income. For owners with a mortgage and private renters, the proportion of income spent on housing costs in 2011/12 is the same as in 1994/95, at 18 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively. For lower income households, those with a mortgage paid $314 a week, on average, in housing costs, which represented 26 per cent of their gross weekly income.As a proportion of gross household income, housing costs for lower income owners with a mortgage have declined from 27 per cent in 1994/95 to 24 per cent in 1999/00, before rising to 26 per cent in 2011/12.Couple families with dependent children and couple-only households made up the majority (65 per cent) of first-home buyers with a mortgage, the ABS said, with 47 per cent of these couple households including dependent children. A further 22 per cent were lone person households. There has been little change in the family composition of first-home buyer households since 1995/96.