Next month, Australia will get an update to a number that has been frequently cited in the never abating housing debate. That number if the roughly 13 million spare bedrooms in the nation's housing stock. With census night on August 11, an update to the number of spare bedrooms could reignite calls for rules around the Age Pension and the tax system to be changed to incentivise those room being "activated" by homeowners. Property economist Dr Lyndall Bryant from the Queensland University of Technology has long researched the barriers around people offering up their spare bedrooms to the market. But until more supply can come online, researchers like Dr Bryant believe making it easier for spare bedrooms to come to market could make a genuine difference.