The average weekly rent for a house in the Victorian capital is $400, with landlords asking $600 for properties in the inner city

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Melbourne’s average weekly house rents have reached a record high, jumping from $390 to $400 a week in the December quarter, an increase of 5.3% over the past year.

But its unit rents remained stable at $370 over the December quarter, the latest report from real estate marketing company Domain also found.

The data shows rental houses in the inner east have risen 6.2% in 12 months to an average $548 a week, and inner-city houses are an average $600 a week.

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Tamara Lloyd, from Ray White in Croydon in Melbourne’s east, said December was “ridiculously busy” for the agency.

“Normally the lead-up to Christmas isn’t quite so busy, but we had to call in extra help,” she said. “There were a lot of applications for family homes, and the busyness has continued into January.

“We had our first lot of home opens for the year on Saturday, and for each home there were multiple applications for all of them – at least five or six. They get snapped up.”

The Domain report said low and falling house vacancy rates suggested average house rents in Melbourne would continue to rise in the coming months.

“While rents may be high, significant new apartment development and rising vacancy rates are expected to moderate unit rental increases this year,” the report said.

It echoes findings from the latest index by Corelogic RP data released this week, that found a rental pricing surge in Melbourne despite rent rises overall hitting record lows, with falls in Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwin.



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Another report, published in November by the Eastern Community Legal Centre, found extensive rental stress (defined as households in the lowest 40% of incomes that are paying more than 30% of their usual gross weekly income on rent) in Melbourne’s eastern metropolitan region.

While on average 24.9% of people in Melbourne were under rental stress, the report found rates significantly higher in the municipalities of Maroondah (26.8%), Monash (27.8 %), Whitehorse (27.8%) and Yarra Ranges (30.3%), despite those areas being perceived as affluent.

Kathleen Hulse, a professor of housing studies at Swinburne University, said houses in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne were desirable to families because many thought those areas had the best private and state schools.

“People want to get into good school zones, and if they can’t afford to buy there, they may well rent so they’ve got an address in the school zone,” she said.

An abundance of apartment complexes being built in and around the city meant rent prices for units were likely to stabilise, she said. Houses in the same areas would continue to attract strong rental yields because there were not that many.



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“However, they won’t reach the highs of Sydney rents in the short term. But, if in the longer term, we continue to see a growing rate of demand it may well take those rents nearer to those levels.”

Erin Frances is renting a two-bedroom house in Burnley, 4km east of the CBD. Her rent was increased by $20 as soon as her fixed-term lease ended, despite already being more expensive than similar properties in the area. She tried to dispute the rise, but gave up and is looking to rent elsewhere.



“I did not appreciate getting two Hoyts vouchers in the mail shortly after my rent increase as a Christmas present, however nice the sentiment might seem,” she said.

“I would have preferred to pay $20 a week less for a few weeks rather than spending a fortnight’s rent increase on buying me vouchers.”