In today’s blog, Georgia takes a look at the change in median weekly rental costs in South Australia and Victoria. She discovers things are not always as the media would have you believe. If you’re interested in learning more about the private rental market in your local area, our housing team might be able to help you.

The private rental market is a tricky beast to understand. While the sales market gets a lot of media coverage, in terms of current pricing levels and growth, the private market gets very little coverage. This is a shame, as it’s such an important part of our housing market, providing housing for a wide range of people for a wide range of reasons. It also provides housing options for some of Australia’s more vulnerable people, those on lower incomes. Understanding the pricing points and growth in the private rental market is vital to understanding how the market is providing for these people.

So I thought, for my last blog of the year, I’d make some maps to have a look at the geographic spread of the change in rental costs. I’ve had a look at the change in median weekly rent between June 30 2018 and June 30 2019 in South Australia and Victoria. And I found a story I didn’t really expect.

Looking at South Australia to start, you can see that there have been significant increases in weekly rent in the regional areas of the state – especially those with significant population centres such as Port Augusta, Whyalla and Ceduna. There has been some rental growth within Adelaide itself, but not to the extent of the regional areas. It’s also important to understand the value change too – some regional areas such as Mid Murray, have had rent increases of $40 a week.

A similar story is evident in Victoria, with many regional areas seeing significant increases in median rent over the 12 month period. The largest increases have been in Queenscliffe, Moyne and Southern Grampians. Some areas within Greater Melbourne have also seen significant increases in rent, such as Bayside and Greater Dandenong.

The moral of the story? Don’t forget about those living in regional areas! They are struggling with increasing housing costs, not just those living in urban areas like the media would have you believe.