Australians across the country are having to fork out more and more each week on rent, but one unexpected area has seen an eye-watering rise.
Regional Western Australia has seen the demand for rentals increase at a rate faster than most of the country, with the average rental cost of dwellings rising 12.5 per cent in the past year, according to PropTrack‘s Market Insight report.
The surge in demand has been put down to a spike in demand from fly-in fly-out workers, with prices for Perth dwellings trailing behind at 8.2 per cent.
“There is a lot of demand for workers in mining and agricultural areas, and not enough supply in rental stocks. There just aren‘t a lot of units in regional WA,” PropTrack Director Economic Research and report author Cameron Kusher told NCA NewsWire.
The demand is particularly bad for homes, with rental costs rising by 14.3 per cent in the past year, to sit at a new median of $480 per week.
WA was the only regional area in Australia to see a rise in demand for homes in the past quarter, rising by 6.7 per cent.
This goes against trends in other states and territories, where people are moving back to the major cities in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Things are changing. Regional areas were really strong at the start of the pandemic and there are now signs of that easing,” Mr Kusher said.
“The impetus to move out of the capitals is changing.”
Sydney and Melbourne are seeing demand for small units in inner-city suburbs explode, but for those in regional WA, it seems bigger is better.
The price for homes with at least five bedrooms has shot up by 50 per cent, while the cost of a three-bedroom and four-bedroom home has risen by 13.2 per cent and 12.8 per cent respectively.
“That‘s a story about more demand for rentals in that area and not enough stock,” Mr Kusher said.
The price rises in regional WA reflect a worrying trend in the cost of renting for the rest of the country, with Australia seeing the fastest quarterly and annual rise on record.
It‘s the “tightest rental market we’ve ever seen” according to Mr Kusher, with things set to ”get worse before it gets better”.
Australia’s median weekly rent now sits at $520 for houses and $460 for units, jumping to $640 for a home in Sydney.
Here‘s what the cost of rent looks like in the rest of Auastralia:
NEW SOUTH WALES
Famed for its record-high house prices, Sydney has once again seen a huge jump in rents.
The median rental cost in Sydney sits at $640 per week for a home and $520 for a unit.
In just a year, the cost of renting a home has jumped by 12.3 per cent, with unit costs rising by a lower rate of 8.3 per cent.
Weekly rental costs have not increased for this quarter for regional NSW, as more people move back to the cities, but the cost of renting a home is still 11.1 per cent higher than it was last year, now sitting at $500 per week.
VICTORIA
Victorians enjoy considerably lower median rental costs than other capital cities, with the average home’s weekly cost sitting at $640 for a house and $420 for an apartment.
The price of renting a home in Melbourne has not increased in the past quarter, however, the cost of renting a unit has increased by five per cent.
QUEENSLAND
Brisbane has seen a considerable jump in the price of both houses and units, rising 16.7 per cent and 7.5 per cent in the past year respectively.
The cost of a house has risen by 2.9 per cent to a median of $525 per week, and by 1.2 per cent to $430 per week for a unit in the past quarter.
ACT
Canberrans still boast the highest weekly rent in the country, sitting at $690 per week for a home and $550 for a unit.
The capital hasn’t seen a huge jump since the past quarter, up 1.5 per cent and 1.9 per cent for houses and units respectively, but there’s still been an 11.3 per cent rise in weekly rents for homes in the past year.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Those living in South Australia’s regions are residing in one of the only places in the country where the cost of renting has actually fallen.
It now costs an average of $235 per week to rent a unit outside of Adelaide, down 6.0 per cent in the past quarter.
For a house, the median weekly rent is now the lowest in the country at $320 a week, down 3.0 per cent in the past quarter.
The story isn‘t so good for Adelaideans, with prices up 4.3 per cent for houses and 2.6 per cent for units in the past quarter.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Unlike the eastern states, Perth residents have not seen an increase in the cost of renting a unit in the past quarter.
However, the cost of living in a house in WA‘s capital now sits at $495, increasing by 3.1 per cent in the past quarter and 10.0 per cent in the past year.
The situation is even higher for homes outside of Perth, with the weekly rent cost increasing by a whopping 14.3 per cent in the past 12 months for regional houses, now sitting at $480.
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