12 hours ago
The sad truth about how Aussies treat their neighbours in 2025
Nearly three quarters of Aussies don't feel like they know their neighbours anymore, with many avoiding saying hello and even sending passive aggressive messages.
Exclusive data from Real Insurance and MyMavins reveals Australians are socialising less with the people they live near, highlighting a generational gap in behaviour when it comes to a sense of community.
One of the biggest discoveries from the report was that 72 per cent of people nationwide feel Australians are less interested in knowing their neighbours compared to 20 years ago.
Meanwhile, a whopping 62 per cent of Aussies admitted they'd lived next to someone for more than six months without ever having met them.
Among Gen Z and Gen Y Australians, that number rises to 71 and 70 per cent respectively.
Psychologist and founder of the Happiness Institute, Dr Tim Sharp, said many of 2025's neighbourly habits came from a changed relationship with how people socialised.
'For Gen Z and Gen Y, community isn't always next door,' he said. 'It's often online, interest-based, and built in comment threads and DMs rather than driveways and cul-de-sacs.'
'That community is not so much defined by geographical boundaries, but more by other things like passions, interests … the need for connection hasn't gone anywhere. It's an inherent part of being a human.'
The data, taken from the Real Neighbours Report 2025, was collected from interviews with more than 5,000 Australians aged 18 and over.
In doing so, the report was able to calculate the country's happiest neighbourhoods, using a scoring system that ranked friendliness, likability, helpfulness, community spirit and noise.
Across Australia, the overall neighbourhood rating sits at 69.5, with the best areas at scores of 75 and the worst at scores of around 63.
Australia's top three areas include Sutherland in Sydney, Cairns and South Australia's south east. On the other end of the scale, Central West NSW, Ballarat and inner Melbourne were ranked with the lowest scores within the ranking.
The number one source of judgment between neighbours is noise level: with 48 per cent of Aussies judging neighbours for their volume, and a third of Aussies feeling judged for the same thing.
That judgement is not always invisible, either. One in four Aussies have received passive-aggressive messages from the people around them, with that number jumping to one in three among Gen Z responders.
To make matters worse, more than a third of Aussies have felt their privacy was invaded by a neighbour, from observation without their consent to even entering their property without permission.
Neighbours can get so bad that nearly a third of those surveyed had taken concrete action to escape difficult ones. 17 per cent of Australians have called the police on a neighbour before, and 12 per cent have actually relocated to save themselves strife.
The study also shows a generational gap in behaviour. While nearly 9 in 10 Aussies greet neighbours regularly, only 30 per cent of Gen Z always acknowledge their neighbours when passing by, compared to 73 per cent of Baby Boomers.
Baby Boomers are also twice as likely as Gen Z to know all of their neighbours, at 36 vs. 18 per cent.
Dr Sharp said these changing habits weren't always as bad as they seemed.
'There's not necessarily a distinction between online and real life nowadays,' he said. 'There's nothing wrong with messaging someone rather than walking around a corner … but the best way to utilise the contemporary technologies is to use them as a means of fostering [real life] relationships.'
Jo Taranto, founder of community outreach group Good for the Hood, said she often saw online groups being made for people to connect within their suburb, using social media apps such as Facebook.
'Online groups are great to supplement and support existing relationships, as well as create new connections for events that are coming up,' she said. '[They] have a really positive place to build local identity and support local activities.'
It's not all doom and gloom for Australian mateship in the data, either. 48 per cent of people surveyed said that a casual conversation had eventually led to friendship with a neighbour.
Around 2 in 3 Australians see their neighbours to be overall helpful and likeable, and 80 per cent consider good neighbour relationships to be important for safety and emergency reasons.
That's more than just talk, too. Nearly 3 in 5 people nationwide asked neighbours to watch their homes and over half of Aussies share groceries and tools with the person next door.
'Connection to neighbours, or community, is vitally important,' Dr Sharp said. 'We all have different preferences. There's no one size fits all approach.'
'You need to do it in a way that works for you … in some way or other, we all like to and need to connect.'
