Renting a mid-priced unit in any of Australia\u2019s capital cities now costs more than half a typical single worker\u2019s take-home pay, spurring advocates to urge Labor to offer renters more protections.<\/p>\n
New modelling shows someone earning $70,000 \u2013 close to the median annual income \u2013 would have to spend two-thirds of their earnings if they wanted to rent the median Sydney apartment.<\/p>\n
Everybody\u2019s Home, a housing advocacy group, released the analysis in its latest \u201cPriced Out\u201d report amid a political debate over rent hikes<\/a> and the Albanese government\u2019s tax reforms.<\/p>\n Liberal MPs seized on NAB and Ray White modelling to claim the reforms would add 30% to rents, though both companies have clarified they were not making forecasts.<\/p>\n Labor\u2019s budget in May predicted its reforms would add less than $2 a week to the median rent.<\/p>\n Maiy Azize, a spokesperson for Everybody\u2019s Home, said rents had been rising well before the budget\u2019s reforms were revealed, with the median rent up nearly $50 since March 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cOur rental crisis isn\u2019t a new phenomenon or a policy shock,\u201d Azize said. \u201cRents have been running away for years, with the pain spreading well beyond people on low incomes.\u201d<\/p>\n The report compared median rents in different cities to a range of income levels.<\/p>\n Adelaide was the most affordable capital city with rents of about $550 a week, the report found. That would still cost a worker more than 50% of their take-home pay, at $1,097 a week, if they were on a pre-tax annual income of $70,000.<\/p>\n Sydney\u2019s median unit rent, at about $756 per week, would cost 69% of their pay, up from 65% in March 2025.<\/p>\n Perth and Darwin, at about $669, would cost 61% of their pay. Brisbane rents would cost 59% and Melbourne 55%.<\/p>\n People are considered to be in housing stress<\/a>, with greater risk of financial difficulty, if their household income falls in the bottom 40% but they spend over 30% of that on housing. The report shows a single person on $70,000 a year would fall into housing stress if they rented out a flat in any of the capital cities.<\/p>\n Regional Australia is no longer an affordable alternative, with median rents in most regional centres surpassing $330 a week \u2013 more than 30% of income for a worker on $70,000.<\/p>\n A person earning $40,000 a year, close to the full JobSeeker rate, would have to spend 80% or more of their weekly income for a typical rental in any capital city.<\/p>\n Table<\/a><\/p>\n Even someone on a $130,000 salary would have to spend 40% of their income for the median Sydney rental.<\/p>\n The report urged the government to focus its next housing reform efforts on renters, calling for limits on rent increases and new minimum standards for rental properties.<\/p>\n \u201cThe federal government has shown that it can take action to help people buy their first home; now it must help everyone afford to rent one,\u201d Azize said.<\/p>\n It also called for rapid construction<\/a> of new social housing<\/a>, homes rented at a fixed proportion of the tenant\u2019s income.<\/p>\n The report follows the Australian Council of Trade Unions on Wednesday launching a campaign to double the standard rental lease to two years and build more public housing.<\/p>\n The outgoing ACTU president, Michele O\u2019Neil, said public housing should make up one in every 10 new homes built, up from current rates of just one in 50.<\/p>\n \u201cOur housing system should reflect the reality that millions of working people are renters,\u201d O\u2019Neil said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Renting a mid-priced unit in any of Australia\u2019s capital cities now costs more than half a typical single…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-593857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}