How is the rental market looking halfway through the year?
Good news for renters in our city with Melbourne now the cheapest capital city to rent a house in Australia. Renters in Melbourne are now paying the same price as they would have in 2015.
Contrast what we are seeing now to just before the pandemic where Melbourne’s average unit rents were at $430 an overall 16% drop.
See below week rent prices among our major cities in Australia.
Some things never change
Even with Melbourne’s rental market price decreasing as a whole, some suburbs performed well in the first 6 months of 2021.
Despite its strict lockdowns in 2020 and in the beginning of this year, inner-city Melbourne suburbs continued to appeal to renters. Richmond was the most in-demand suburb for houses across all capital cities with 147,284 highly-engaged renters looking in that suburb, while Melbourne’s CBD was the most in-demand suburb for units with 623,291 engaged prospect renters.
Undoubtedly access to lifestyle amenities such as restaurants, bars, sport, public transport and retail gives Richmond a high appeal. Benefiting from inner-city living without the concentration of high rise properties. Also with rental prices decreasing, those who would have been previously priced out of Richmond can now afford to rent in inner eastern suburb.
See below most viewed rental suburb.
Whats happening in South Yarra?
Bringing the data home to South Yarra we can see an increase in demand over the first 6 months of the year. We had an increase of 18% in the rental demand over the last 6 months so we should see prices start to come back towards the end of the year and median days on market to fall.
What has changed?
Even though most of the demand remains in the inner city data suggests renters increased their focused on middle-ring and outer metropolitan suburbs for more space and cheaper rent during the first six months of 2021. Rosanna, about 40 minutes from Melbourne CBD, saw a 53% jump in demand for houses between December 2020 to June 2021.
Increase in demand for the first 6 months of 2021:
Where properties are renting the fastest
Dream sea and tree change houses for rent don’t last long on the market and data reveals listings with the shortest days on market were in suburbs located further away from the CBD with house’s in Botanic Ridge on the market for an average of 13 days.
Where rent values have declined the most?
With less demand in the cities, several inner-city suburbs saw drops in rental value allowing renters to take advantage of the lower rental prices.
In the popular Melbourne rental suburb Carlton, the average estimated weekly rental value for a unit decreased 8.4%.
Melbourne’s west had the biggest fall in house rents of 2.6 per cent, or $10, over the quarter.
For units, the inner-city weakness continued, with rents dropping 2.6 per cent over the quarter to be down a huge 17.8 per cent over the past year.
It’s not all doom and gloom for Melbourne’s landlords as the sought-after Mornington Peninsula saw rents rise, with house rents up by 2.2 per cent and unit rents by 4.3 per cent in the past three months.
We will continue to monitor the rental market closely and bring you insights over the next 3 months.