New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory contain the most suburbs where rental conditions have changed to favour tenants in the past 12 months, according to new research.
The quarterly RentRabbit.com.au ‘Better Renting Report’ found the list of suburbs where rental conditions favour tenants continued to be small.
Family-friendly Derrimut, located 17km west of Melbourne’s CBD was found to have the most tenant-friendly conditions in the country, while Mount Duneed in Victoria, West Pymble in NSW, and Campbell and Hughes in the ACT rounded out the top five.
Victoria dominated the latest quarterly rankings, with 10 suburbs on the top 20 list, while NSW had seven and the ACT three.
The top 20 ranked suburbs included 12 house markets and eight unit markets, with all suburbs having a vacancy rate of at least 2 per cent, while weekly rents ranged from $310 to $850 per week.
The Rent Rabbit report looked for suburbs which had turned in favour of renters, with their vacancy rate needing to have increased by at least one percentage point over the past 12 months, while their median weekly rent needed to have either fallen or remained unchanged during that period.
Suburbs also needed to have at least 1000 properties and be within 200km of a capital city CBD.
RentRabbit.com.au co-founder Ben Pretty said the research illustrated the two-tier nature of Australia’s rental market.
“The RentRabbit.com.au Better Renting Report highlights that renters are able to find tenant-friendly suburbs in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, but are really struggling to find suitable locations in Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin,” Mr Pretty said.
“This is all about supply and demand.
“Where supply is relatively low and demand relatively high, it’s hard for tenants to find accommodation, which leads to falling vacancy rates and rising rents.”
Mr Pretty said the rental market needs a higher supply of properties to ease pressure on prices.
“For the sake of families and people on average incomes, I’d like to see a more balanced rental market,” he said.
“For that to happen, supply needs to increase, which means we need more investors to enter the market and more new builds to come online.”
