Rents jumped a record 12pc last year

Rental affordability has taken another hit with asking rents of houses in every capital city bar Darwin rising at their fastest annual rate on record and the apartment rents accelerating further as demand among tenants shifts to lower-priced rental units.

The median asking rent of houses across all state and territory capitals jumped 12 per cent over the year to June – a new record – and the equivalent figure for unit rents leaped 12.2 per cent, Domain’s quarterly rent report shows.

How much to get in? Asking rents for both houses and units rose at record rates in the year to June. Asking house rents in Brisbane posted the biggest year-on-year gain, surging 16.9 per cent, followed by Sydney (12.7 per cent) and Adelaide (11.6 per cent). The Queensland capital also led in unit rent increases, with a 12.5 per cent annual rise, also followed by Sydney (11.7 per cent) and Hobart (11.1 per cent).

The figures, a month after separate Domain numbers showed record-low vacancy rates across the country’s capital cities, reveal the latest prices in an increasingly unaffordable private rental market that charity Anglicare says puts rental housing out of reach for most people reliant on social security to support themselves.

Many factors contributed to the tight rental market, such as high purchase prices that kept would-be buyers in the rental market for longer and kept overall demand higher, rising borrowing costs being passed on to tenants and overseas migration and a return of international students also added to rental demand, Domain head of economics and research Nicola Powell said.

But the greatest single driver of demand was the change in household formation that prompted many people as a result of the pandemic to move out of shared living arrangements to be in smaller groupings or on their own, Dr Powell said.

Source: Rents jumped a record 12pc last year (afr.com)