According to figures from the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA), Perth is currently home to eight suburbs where the median weekly rent is $320 or less in the three months to the end of February 2016.
Over the same period REIWA puts Perth’s city-wide median weekly rent at $400.
Of the eight suburbs on the list, five of them have a median weekly rent of just $300, while two boast a median of $315 a week and one sits at a median of $320.
REIWA president Hayden Groves said unlike cities on Australia’s eastern seaboard, rental conditions in some areas of Perth definitely favour tenants.
“Unlike the eastern states where rental affordability remains an issue, housing affordability in Perth’s rental market has improved considerably over the last 18 months,” Groves said.
“With good choice available you are now more likely to find a rental property that ticks all the boxes and secure a competitively priced lease,” he said.
According to the REIWA statistics, only one suburb on the most affordable list, Wembley, has an upper quartile rent price that exceeded Perth’s overall median.
Groves said this indicates affordability is increasing across the city’s entire rental market and that Perth could soon see a change in rental dynamics.
“This tells us that improved affordability in Perth’s rental market has occurred across all price ranges and that tenants have a good opportunity to upgrade.
“If you’re living in shared accommodation you might find that you can now afford to take that next step and move out into a smaller place of your own.”
Source: REIWA
According to the latest Residential Property Price Index from the Australia Bureau of Statistics, house prices rose in Perth by 0.5% in the December 2015 quarter, which stopped a run of price falls stretching back to 2013.
