More data from Australia's 2006 Census provides a long- range view of the addressable market for suppliers of residential finance. The percentage of home owners with a mortgage has fluctuated over 20 years, from a low of 38 per cent and a high of 52 per cent. In recent years this percentage has increased toward the high end, thanks to easier credit conditions, low interest rates, grants for first-time buyers as well as escalating house prices.A report derived from Census data and published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week shows that 34.7 per cent of all dwellings are subject to a mortgage, and about half of all "owned" dwellings.In 1976 (the first census in which homes owned with a mortgage can be distinguished from homes which are owned outright) just over half of all dwellings that were owner occupied had a mortgage (52 per cent). At the 1986 Census mortgaged homes had decreased to 45 per cent of all owned homes. That proportion declined to 40 per cent at the 1991 Census and to 38 per cent at the 1996 Census.Secular changes in the financial market pushed that percentage back to close to 50 per cent at the 2006 Census.The Census data shows that the median monthly home loan repayment in 2006 was $1300. Between 1976 and 2006, median monthly housing loan repayments increased in real terms from $459 (in 2006 dollars), to $1300 Of 12 household types reported by the ABS, young couples without children had the highest median loan repayment of $1733 followed by couples with children, $1500; young group households, $1408; couples with school- age children, $1300; and couples with young adult children, $1200.The census shows 62 per cent of couples with children, whether young or school age, were buying their home with a mortgage, as were 49 per cent of couples without children.