rents lifted 1.6 per cent in the June quarter<\/a>, pushing the median rent to $705 per week.<\/p>\nThe cumulative impact of these increases means rents have lifted 40.6 per cent over the past five years, adding a $204 per week burden for would-be homeowners.<\/p>\n
SQM founder Louis Christopher warned low vacancy rates were pushing rents up which was forcing tenants to sacrifice a huge amount of their salaries.<\/p>\n
He stressed this \u201cdemand destruction\u201d could eventually lead to an increase in homelessness.<\/p>\n
\u201cRents as a proportion of incomes just get to a point where the population just simply cannot afford any more,\u201d Mr Christopher told Business Now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you actually see then is more people per dwelling live together, so there’s more sharing going on.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, there’s more homelessness as well and we cannot rule out that scenario and that represents a significant fall in the standard of living if we do see that play out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cotality\u2019s report showed that rental vacancy rates were stuck at just 1.6 per cent across the nation while listings are 17 per cent below normal levels.<\/p>\n
Gerard Burg, Cotality\u2019s head of research, said the steep increases had driven \u201csevere rental affordability constraints\u201d.<\/p>\n
“We are seeing a profound shift in affordability across the market. In March this year, the typical household was allocating roughly one-third of their gross income to rent, compared to around 27 per cent just five years ago,” Mr Burg said.<\/p>\n
“While quarterly rental growth has eased slightly, the underlying supply deficit means conditions remain incredibly challenging for tenants.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also noted that the low vacancy rates meant tenants are left with \u201cvery little leverage\u201d.<\/p>\n
“Capital city rents rose faster than regional markets this quarter, reversing a trend of regional outperformance seen between late 2024 and early 2026, largely because regional markets are hitting severe affordability ceilings,” he said.<\/p>\n
Separate figures from REA Group showed the median advertised rent grew 3.1 per cent to $670 per week.<\/p>\n
This lifted rents up 6.4 per cent over the year and the increase was more profound in the capital cities than in regional locations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s housing crisis risks spurring a \u201csignificant fall\u201d in living standards as rents lifted to another record high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,32364,164,7688,5626,102286,123181,372501],"class_list":["post-790206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-cotality","tag-economy","tag-housing","tag-interest-rates","tag-louis-christopher","tag-rents","tag-sqm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}