Top 20 suburbs where tenants have the upper hand

New research by RentRabbit reveals top 20 tenant-friendly suburbs, with WA's Coolbinia taking top spot
Comes a week after HOOD.ai revealed top 20 landlord controlled suburbs, with NSW surprisingly dominating both charts
Lack of tenant-friendly suburbs prompts concern for future, says RentRabbit co-founder

New research commissioned by rental review platform RentRabbit.com.au has revealed the top 20 Australian suburbs where market conditions are favouring renters.

The latest edition of RentRabbit’s quarterly Better Renting Report analysed all Australian suburbs against range of “tenant-friendly” conditions, discovering fewer than 50 suburbs met the criteria.

The news comes shortly after HOOD.ai revealed Australia’s 20 most landlord-favouring suburbs, where rents had risen at least 33% in the past 12 months.

Interestingly, suburbs in New South Wales dominated both charts with each listing eight.

RentRabbit.com.au co-founder Ben Pretty expressed concerns that there are so few tenant-friendly suburbs throughout Australia.

“Throughout much of Australia, the data shows that vacancy rates are low, vacancy rates are falling and rents are rising. Thankfully, though, there are some markets where vacancy rates are increasing and rents are decreasing, which means tenants aren’t completely out of options,” he said.

Ben Pretty RentRabbit — Ben Pretty, RentRabbit.com.au co-founder. Image supplied.

Mr Pretty did indicate some concerns for the future of tenant-friendly conditions however.

“Now that the international border has reopened, our population growth is likely to return to pre-pandemic levels. Unless we see a corresponding increase in the supply of rental properties, the number of tenant-friendly suburbs is likely to decrease.”

Ben Pretty, RentRabbit.com.au co-founder

20 tenant-friendly Aussie suburbs

The report contained data from property research consultancy Suburbtrends and the ABS, aiming to uncover the most favourable suburbs for tenants with proximity to capital cities.

The research analysed each suburb using a strict set of criteria, excluding suburbs more than 250km away from a capital city or where total rental properties were less than 1,000.

Suburbs were also only considered if the vacancy rate had increased by at least 0.5% over the past year, and median weekly rents had either remained stable or fallen.

The remaining suburbs were then ranked by their increase in vacancy rate to establish the top 20 list.

Of the top 20 suburbs, all had a current vacancy rate of at least 2.0% while median weekly rents ranged from $225 to $1,500.

Change in vacancy rate (%) over the past 12 months

Topping the chart was the house market of the West Australian suburb of Coolbinia, located in the City of Stirling just 6km north of Perth’s CBD. Compared to other suburbs in the top 20 ranking, Coolbinia has a relatively low median weekly rent of $510.

Between May of 2021 and 2022, Coolbinia’s vacancy rate shot up by 7.0%, securing the suburb first position in RentRabbit’s most tenant-friendly suburbs chart by over three percentage points.

Following behind in second and third place were the Victorian suburbs of Essendon West and Barwon Heads, with their vacancy rates increasing by 3.9 and 3.3 percentage points in the past year respectively.

Change in median weekly rent ($) over the past 12 months