Suburbs worst for renters
Several Gold Coast communities are at ‘breaking point’ amid crisis
The communities where tenants are buckling under “extreme rental pain” have been revealed, with four Gold Coast neighbourhoods ranked among Australia’s worst places to have a lease.
Suburbtrends’ latest Rental Pain Index shows the escalating crisis for renters in a majority of suburbs, with Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland leading the nation’s distress.
On the Gold Coast, Currumbin Waters, Reedy Creek-Andrews, Worongary-Tallai and Ashmore made the national list of 25 worst areas for renters.
Currumbin Waters in the city’s south, as well as Emu Park on the Capricorn Coast, were singled out as experiencing the most severe strain, with RPI scores at the maximum limit of 100.
Suburbtrends founder Kent Lardner said these communities were at “breaking point”.
“With rental affordability consuming upwards of 30 per cent of household incomes and vacancy rates at critically low levels, the situation for many Australian renters is becoming untenable,” Mr Lardner said.
It comes as PropTrack’s inaugural Rental Affordability Report revealed close to twothirds of homes were now officially out of reach for the typical Queensland family.
The PropTrack analysis found Aussie households earning the median income of about $111,000 could afford to lease the smallest share of rental properties since 2008, when records began.
The Suburbtrends report highlighted “critical affordability” in Queensland, where tenants were spending an average of 31.87 per cent on rent.
Rent prices across the state were up 9.92 per cent over the past 12 months to March as vacancy stagnated about 1 per cent.
A staggering 77 per cent or 378 of the 490 Queensland suburbs surveyed received an RPI score of 75 or more – placing tenants in these areas in “extreme pain”.
Mr Lardner warned the steep rise in rents would result in more homelessness as families were priced out of the market altogether.
“The affordability squeeze is triggering a domino effect, potentially rendering the most vulnerable households homeless at an unprecedented rate by year’s end,” Mr Lardner said. “The data demands not just our attention but immediate action to prevent a social disaster.”
Mr Lardner said alternative solutions to affordable housing such as prefabricated homes could be explored to combat the crisis.
The RPI considers the average 12-month rent increase, rental affordability as a percentage of income, and the vacancy rate of each suburb with more than 100 private rental properties.