Rents have surged by more than 50% since 2022 in several key electorates shaping up to be major battlegrounds in the upcoming federal election.
Huge rent rises will give voters in key suburban electorates plenty to think about when they head to the polls, with the latest PropTrack data revealing the regions where renters are under the most pressure.
The data shows that unit rents have jumped by more than 50% in 13 electorates, while house rents in six seats have risen by at least that much.
The biggest rent rises were concentrated in Labor-held seats across suburban Perth and Sydney, revealing a big problem for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ahead of an election with housing affordability front and centre.
The cost of living and housing affordability were the top issues Australians feel the government should focus on, especially among young people and renters, according to a recent survey by JWS Research.
Rental affordability worsened over the past year, according to the latest REA Group Rental Affordability Report, and despite rental growth slowing in the past year, affordability has hit the worst level on record.
In the electorates where rents have risen most, tenants are now having to fork out hundreds of dollars more per week to cover rent compared with May 2022, when Aussies last went to the polls, PropTrack data shows.
Many of these electorates have higher proportions of renters than Australia overall, revealing the extent of strain many voters are facing ahead as this year’s election campaign gets underway.
Rent rises since the last election mean some tenants are spending hundreds more on rent each week. Picture: Getty.
REA Group executive manager of economics Angus Moore said “incredibly tight” rental availability around the country was the key factor that had driven the surge in rents.
“It’s been very, very competitive to find a rental and that’s been bidding up the price of advertised rentals,” Mr Moore said. “The population has been growing quite strongly."
“That’s been contributing to rental demand, but it's certainly not the only factor.
“During the pandemic we saw a lot of household formation. Basically what happened is larger share houses broke apart into smaller one or two person rentals. So we just need more rentals than we used to.”
The electorates where rental prices surged since 2022
The electorate with the strongest rent growth since the last election was Burt, in Perth’s rapidly growing south east.
The median weekly house rent there jumped by 55% in the past three years to $650, while weekly unit rents rose 62% to reach $550.
In Swan, in Perth’s east, where almost 40% of residents are renters, the median weekly rent has increased by 54%, or $245 a week.
In dollar terms, Kingsford Smith in Sydney’s south east was the electorate where rents rose most. A typical house there now costs $1300 a week to rent, up from $850 at the last election, meaning renters are now forking out an extra $450 a week to cover rent.
Most of the electorates with the biggest rent increases were in the suburban heartlands of Perth and Sydney, cities where Labor currently holds the majority of seats.
In western Sydney seats such as Blaxland, Watson, Chifley, McMahon and Parramatta, rent rises for houses ranged from 42% to 50%, equating to about $200 to $250 a week.
In the electorate of Parramatta in western Sydney, where more than half of households rent, house rents have gone up by $220 a week while unit rents rose $210 a week since the 2022 federal election. Picture: Getty
Mr Moore said the cost of living crisis had pushed many renters to seek homes in more affordable areas, which increased competition and contributed to rent rises.
“Sydney is the least affordable rental market in the country and rental affordability is at its worst level we’ve ever seen,” Mr Moore said.
“That's going to play into some of those further out, slightly more affordable rental markets as people look further afield.”
It was a similar situation in the unit market, but there were also big jumps in inner-Sydney Labor seats of Barton (52%) and Sydney (49%). Rents in Anthony Albanese’s inner-west seat of Grayndler were up 44%, or about $200 a week.
These electorates have higher proportions of renters than Australia as a whole, including Parramatta where 51% of homes were rented, and Grayndler where the rate is 44%.
By comparison, about 31% of Australian households rent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Strong population growth, increased household formation and a shortage of rental properties has caused rents to rise, particularly in more affordable areas. Picture: Adam Yip
In Perth, where Labor holds all but two seats, the nation’s fastest population growth and low rental availability have put pressure on rental prices, causing median weekly rents to rise by between $175 and $245 a week, with rents rising most rapidly in outer suburbs.
In contrast to Sydney, most Perth electorates with big rent rises have lower proportions of renters than Australia overall, with the exception of inner-city Perth (41%) and Swan (39%).
“Part of the story is people moving to Perth over the past years because the labour market has been quite strong,” Mr Moore said.
The electorate of Burt in Perth's outer west had the fastest increase in rents since the last election, with house rents rising 62% since May 2022. Picture: realestate.com.au
Western Australia has recorded the fastest population growth of the states recently, with its population rising 2.8% in the year to June 2024, compared to 2.1% for Australia overall, according to the ABS.
An extra 81,400 people now call WA home, with the uplift driven by net overseas migration (71%) and net interstate migration (12%).
But another factor contributing to strong rent growth in Perth was the city’s relative affordability in prior years, Mr Moore said.
“Western Australia was the most affordable state for rentals by a wide margin, and the most affordable we’ve ever seen relative to incomes going into the pandemic,” he said.
Rental prices surged by 51% since the last election in the electorate of Spence in Adelaide's north, which includes suburbs such as Smithfield, Elizabeth and Andrews Farm. Picture: realestate.com.au/sold
In South Australia, house rents jumped 50% in Spence, in northern Adelaide, which was also the electorate where house prices rose the most since the last election. In neighbouring Makin, rents went up 42%.
“South Australia normally sees people on net leaving to other states, and that flipped during the pandemic,” Mr Moore said.
“It is a smaller rental market relative to Sydney and Melbourne so that extra demand has made conditions there very challenging.”
Where rents rose the least since the 2022 election
At the other end of the spectrum, the electorates with the smallest rent rises were mostly in Tasmania, the ACT and regional NSW.
Labor holds seven of the 10 electorates with the smallest rent rises, for both houses and units.
Rents were flattest in Lingiari, the Labor-held electorate that encompasses all of the Northern Territory outside Darwin, with the median weekly unit rent increasing just 2% since May 2022, or $10 a week.
Rent rises in Canberra electorates since the 2022 federal election were among the lowest in the country.
Clark, which makes up most of Hobart and is held by independent Andrew Wilie, had the flattest rent growth for houses at just 3%, or $15 a week.
The three Labor-held electorates that make up the ACT – Canberra, Fenner and Bean – had rent rises of between $25 and $50 in the past three years.
Could rising rents affect the election outcome?
The surge in rents could cause renters to become increasingly disenchanted with the major parties, especially if they felt not enough was being done to address the cost of living crisis, according to The Australia Institute senior economist Matt Grudnoff.
“When people are feeling under financial pressure, that's when they get grumpy, and if they think that politicians are to blame or they think that politicians aren’t tackling the issue seriously enough, then they’ll punish them at the ballot box,” he said.
A study of 2022 federal election results by the Australian National University found homeowners were more likely to vote for the Coalition while renters were more likely to vote for Labor or the Greens.
Mr Grudnoff said the major parties were already targeting voters in battleground electorates that had felt the brunt of the rent rises and where the cost of living crisis had an outsized impact.
“It explains the very deliberate strategy the Coalition have had in targeting those outer suburban electorates that they think are full of people who are doing it tough at the moment,” he said.
Housing and the cost of living are expected to be defining issues influencing voters at the upcoming federal election. Picture: Getty
“It will be the Labor government’s role to convince voters they have done as much as they can by bringing down inflation in things like rental assistance and electricity prices, and now interest rates are heading in the right direction. If Labor can convince people of that, they'll be in a strong position.
“If the Coalition can convince them the worst isn’t over and that it’s entirely the Labor government’s fault, then the Coalition will be in the box seat in these kinds of electorates.”
How are the major parties planning to tackle the housing crisis?
While an election hasn’t yet been called, campaigning has already begun with the major parties announcing housing policies aimed at easing the pressure on the housing market.
The Labor government has so far largely focused on delivering the housing policies promised at the last election, including the Help to Buy shared equity scheme to help aspiring homebuyers get into the market sooner, as well as the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund which is to be spent building 30,000 social and affordable homes in five years.
Federal housing and homelessness minister Clare O'Neil says there is still more work to do when it comes to housing. Picture: Supplied
To directly help renters who receive government payments, maximum rates of Commonwealth rent assistance have been increased by about 45% since Labor came to office.
The federal government has also been working with its state and territory counterparts to strengthen renter rights.
Meanwhile, the Coalition has proposed cutting permanent migration from 185,000 to 140,000 for two years and reducing the number of foreign students at metropolitan universities in a bid to ease the pressure on the housing market.
Shadow housing minister Michael Sukkar said the Coalition's proposed $5 billion infrastructure housing fund would deliver more than half-a-million new homes in five years. Picture: Getty
To boost housing supply, the Coalition has promised to spend $5 billion on infrastructure such as water, power and sewerage to unlock greenfield housing developments.
The opposition has also proposed allowing Australians to access up to $50,000, or 40%, of their superannuation to buy their first home, which would need to be returned when the house was sold.
The Greens have called for rent freezes and caps, and the establishment of a National Renters Protection Authority to protect renter rights.
Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather has been calling for more help for renters and first-home buyers. Picture: Getty
They have also proposed boosting housing stocks by creating a public property developer to build 360,000 good quality public homes over five years.
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