Younger Australians Are Changing the Way We Move House

For generations, moving house in Australia has followed roughly the same formula. Hire a truck or removalist, pack everything you own into boxes, coordinate the entire move within a single day and hope everything arrives safely at the other end. It is a model that has remained remarkably consistent, even as almost every other aspect of how Australians live, work and consume services has changed.

The generation moving most frequently is beginning to challenge that model, and the moving and storage industry needs to pay attention. The latest ABS housing mobility data shows that 35 per cent of households headed by a 25 to 34-year-old moved three or more times within five years, compared with just 7.8 per cent of households headed by someone aged 45 to 54. The same data shows 84 per cent of households headed by 25 to 34-year-olds had lived in their current dwelling for less than five years.

This greater mobility reflects a much broader shift in the way younger Australians are living. ABS Census analysis found the median age of Australians who moved internally between 2016 and 2021 was 33, compared with 49 among those who remained at the same address. Those who moved were also considerably more likely to be renters, with 45.2 per cent renting their current home compared with 14.7 per cent of people who had not moved.

Younger Australians are relocating for work, relationships, affordability, lifestyle and home ownership, with the ABS finding that among 25 to 34-year-olds who had moved, purchasing a home, family circumstances, wanting a bigger or better property and employment were all significant drivers. For many, moving is becoming a more regular part of life, and when you do something more frequently, your tolerance for an unnecessarily difficult process naturally starts to decline.

When TAXIBOX was founded in 2010, one of the things that struck us about the traditional moving and storage industry was how much effort it required from the customer. Storage typically meant loading your belongings into a vehicle, driving them to a facility and unloading everything again, while moving house often meant compressing an enormous logistical exercise into a narrow window dictated by truck hire, removalist availability, settlement times and access to the new property.

The industry had effectively been designed around customers adapting to the service, rather than the service adapting to customers. That approach is becoming increasingly out of step with the way younger consumers expect businesses to operate.

Australians in their twenties and thirties have grown accustomed to managing almost every aspect of their lives digitally, from banking and travel to shopping and food delivery, and those experiences have created expectations around convenience, transparency, control and flexibility. Those expectations do not suddenly disappear when someone needs to move house.

There is an interesting indication of this in recent ABS housing data, which found that among Australians who wanted to move but thought they were unlikely to do so within the following 12 months, 22 per cent said moving would be too much effort, while 25 per cent pointed to the expense associated with moving. For an industry that has traditionally focused heavily on price and logistics, the fact that effort itself can become a barrier is important because it suggests convenience has real value.

One of the biggest assumptions worth challenging is that moving needs to happen in one frantic day. Anyone who has moved house knows what that can involve, particularly when keys, cleaners, removalists, vehicles, settlement times, children and work commitments all need to align.

Increasingly, customers want the ability to pack progressively, move at their own pace, store belongings between properties when necessary and avoid repeatedly loading and unloading everything they own. For younger Australians who may be renting, relocating between cities, living in apartments without off-street parking or simply moving more regularly, greater flexibility can remove a significant amount of pressure from the experience.

After more than 15 years in this industry, one of the clearest lessons we have learned as a business is that customers do not particularly care how an industry has traditionally operated; they care about whether the service fits their lives. For moving and storage businesses, that means the future will increasingly be shaped by digital booking, transparent pricing, flexible timelines, fewer unnecessary touchpoints and services that give customers greater control over the process.

Younger Australians are already changing when and how often they move. As their expectations continue to shape the market, the opportunity for our industry is to stop asking people to move the way they always have and start designing services around the way they actually live today.