Lenders hunting for the most indebted households to target for refinancing received a handy guide yesterday from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.The local government area with the highest proportion of homes with a mortgage was Serpentine-Jarrahdale, south east of Perth in Western Australia, with a rate of 55.3 per cent. This compares with 34.9 per cent for Australia as a whole and 37.8 per cent for Western Australia.Other LGAs in Western Australia with a high proportion of homes with a mortgage include Wanneroo and Chittering. Wanneroo encompasses both urban and rural areas, and is located north of Perth, on its urban fringe. Wanneroo experienced the largest population growth of all LGAs for Western Australia between 2006 and 2011, with 41,135 people (37.1 per cent), and had growth in the number of occupied private dwellings of 36.3 per cent. Chittering is in the wheat belt region of Western Australia, just beyond the north-eastern fringe of the Perth metropolitan area. The four LGAs in Victoria with a high proportion of homes with a mortgage were Melton, Casey, Golden Plains and Wyndham. Melton and Casey are both less than 50 kilometres from Melbourne; Wyndham is located on the south-western fringe of Melbourne and Golden Plains is a rural area in the south-west of Victoria, between Geelong and Ballarat. Wyndham experienced the largest population growth for an LGA in Victoria, with 48,879 people added (43.4 per cent), between 2006 and 2011, and had 43.9 per cent growth in the number of occupied private dwellings.Mallala and Light in South Australia are about an hour north of the Adelaide city centre, and offer rural living and also have localities with housing developments underway and planned for the future.Camden in New South Wales is located in the south-western fringe of Sydney, and is also growing.The LGAs in Australia with the lowest proportions of homes with a mortgage are mostly located in the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland, and are characterised by their remoteness and high proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up 75 per cent or more of the population of all these remote LGAs, exception for Ashburton, in Western Australia. This is a vast region in the Pilbara known for mining, agriculture and fishing. Over 80 per cent of the dwellings in Ashburton were rented on Census Night in 2011.Median monthly mortgage repayments among LGAs varied from under $500 to over $3,000, with the highest repayments being reported in some LGAs in Sydney, New South Wales and the coastal areas and mining regions of Western Australia.The ABS identified 11 local government areas where median monthly mortgage repayments exceeded $3000. Most of these were in suburban Sydney or Perth.Drawing on data from the 2011 census, the ABS also cast light on changing patterns of home ownership.Eight out of 10 local government areas with the biggest growth in homes with a mortgage between 2006 and 2011 were in regional and even remote areas.Weipa, a resource town on the