Looking for a New Rental? Here Are the Suburbs You Should Probably Avoid

The rental affordability crisis is showing no signs of easing up, it appears. With news emerging that vacancy rates in rental properties are continuing to shrink, the situation is leaving renters with few options and increased risks of poor treatment from opportunistic landlords.

Folks looking for houses or apartments for rent are contesting with vacancy rates varying from 0.2 per cent in Adelaide to 1.4 per cent in Melbourne – per Domain’s Rental Vacancy Rate Report from July 2022.

Off the back of all this, it’s hardly surprising to hear that prices are increasing.

Realestate.com.au shared that across the nation, it appears prices are up 7 per cent. But some suburbs are considerably higher than that.

Clontarf on Sydney’s Northern Beaches has had its median weekly rent jump up 41.8 per cent in 12 months, the real estate company shares.

Killcare Heights in NSW’s Central Coast jumped up by 72.6 per cent.

Shepparton, Bendigo and the Gippsland region in Victoria have increased by at least 20 per cent.

And Rainbow Beach in the Wide Bay region of Queensland has seen rental prices spike by 72.5 per cent.

You can find the full list of suburbs impacted most by increasing rental prices here.

Australian suburbs with low rent vacancy levels for houses or units

If you’re looking for a list of suburbs worth paying attention to when it comes to vacancy rates for rental properties, Domain shared the below tables in its July report.

Table 5. City areas with the lowest vacancy rates.

Rank	Sydney	Melbourne	Brisbane & Gold Coast	Perth	Adelaide
1	Camden (0.2%)	Cardinia (0.3%)	Strathpine (0.1%)	Kalamunda (0%)	Playford (0.1%)
2	Blue Mountains (0.4%)	Yarra Ranges (0.4%)	North Lakes (0.2%)	Gosnells (0.2%)	Salisbury (0.1%)
3	Richmond – Windsor (0.4%)	Nillumbik – Kinglake (0.4%)	Gold Coast – North (0.3%)	Armadale (0.2%)	Port Adelaide – East (0.1%)
4	Campbelltown (NSW) (0.5%)	Frankston (0.5%)	Caboolture Hinterland (0.3%)	Serpentine – Jarrahdale (0.2%)	West Torrens (0.1%)
5	Sutherland – Menai – Heathcote (0.5%)	Sunbury (0.5%)	Chermside (0.3%)	Cockburn (0.2%)	Onkaparinga (0.2%)

Data provided by

Table 4. City areas with the highest vacancy rates.

Rank	Sydney	Melbourne	Brisbane & Gold Coast	Perth	Adelaide
1	Pittwater (3%)	Whitehorse – West (2.2%)	Jimboomba (1.6%)	Cottesloe – Claremont (1.5%)	Adelaide City (1.1%)
2	Ku-ring-gai (2.6%)	Boroondara (2%)	Kenmore – Brookfield – Moggill (1.3%)	Fremantle (0.9%)	Holdfast Bay (0.4%)
3	Eastern Suburbs – North (2.5%)	Hobsons Bay (2%)	Brisbane Inner (1.2%)	Perth City (0.8%)	Burnside (0.4%)
4	Manly (2.3%)	Banyule (1.9%)	Sunnybank (1.1%)	Melville (0.6%)	Mitcham (0.4%)
5	Rouse Hill – McGraths Hill (2.3%)	Maribyrnong (1.8%)	Centenary (1%)	Belmont – Victoria Park (0.5%)	Prospect – Walkerville (0.3%)

Data provided by

In addition to that, RentRabbit, a service that collates reviews of rentals, pulled together a list of 20 suburbs (using data from Suburbtrends and The Australian Bureau of Statistics) that have desperately low numbers of rental properties as of June 2022.

We’ve shared the list of suburbs for you below.

1. Banora Point, 2486, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.3%, Rent as share of household income: 64%
2. Tweed Heads South, 2486, NSW: Property type: Unit, Vacancy rate: 0.2%, Rent as share of household income: 62%
3. Coombabah, 4216, QLD: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.3%, Rent as share of household income: 62%
4. Nambucca Heads, 2447, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.2%, Rent as share of household income: 61%
5. Cooroy, 4563, QLD: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.6%, Rent as share of household income: 61%
6. Ulladulla, 2539, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.3%, Rent as share of household income: 61%
7. Victor Harbor, 5211, SA: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.3%, Rent as share of household income: 59%
8. Maclean, 2463, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.5%, Rent as share of household income: 56%
9. West Kempsey, 2440, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.3%, Rent as share of household income: 54%
10. Busselton, 6280, WA: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.6%, Rent as share of household income: 54%
11. Rokeby, 7019, TAS: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.0%*, Rent as share of household income: 53%
12. Wauchope, 2446, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.5%, Rent as share of household income: 53%
13. Unanderra, 2526, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.8%, Rent as share of household income: 53%
14. Currimundi, 4551, QLD: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.7%, Rent as share of household income: 52%
15. Gateshead, 2290, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.7%, Rent as share of household income: 52%
16. Urraween, 4655, QLD: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.8%, Rent as share of household income: 51%
17. Mowbray, 7248, TAS: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.3%, Rent as share of household income: 51%
18. Corrimal, 2518, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.5%, Rent as share of household income: 51%
19. Moonah, 7009, TAS: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.0%*, Rent as share of household income: 50%
20. Belmont, 2280, NSW: Property type: House, Vacancy rate: 0.4%, Rent as share of household income: 50%

RentRabbit notes the below with respect to the above data.

*When a suburb has a vacancy rate of 0%, that doesn’t mean the suburb literally has no vacant rental properties. Rental properties are regarded as ‘officially’ vacant when they’ve been on the market for 21 days or more. When a suburb has a vacancy rate of 0%, it means all rental properties are being filled in less than 21 days of being listed for rent.

On the state of rental vacancies, RentRabbit co-founder Ben Pretty gave the following statement:

“There are many suburbs across Australia where vacancy rates are very low and tenants are struggling to find somewhere to live,” he said.

“For affluent tenants in more privileged suburbs, they at least have more options in terms of where they can live, especially as many of them are knowledge workers who can work remotely.

“But for the many tenants who have low household incomes and who live in socio-economically disadvantaged areas, they’re really struggling right now and have very few options.”

This, following reports that certain restrictions on tiny house occupancy and granny flat housing (in certain states), makes for a pretty bleak picture for folks in need of affordable rental properties in Australia.

But hey, at least now you have the option to leave a review for your former landlord if you like – which has the potential to inspire fairer conditions in some cases.

This article on rental properties in Australia has been updated since its original publish date.