The Canberra suburbs where rents have risen and fallen the most

Canberra renters are still faced with the highest weekly asking prices for houses and although the pace of growth has appeared to slow, some suburbs have experienced increases of up to 14 per cent.

The capital’s median asking rent for houses stagnated over the past year at $550 per week according to the latest Domain Rental Report for the September quarter.

Although the city figure shows no movement, Domain senior research analyst Eliza Owen said when broken down to a suburb level there are some significant changes.

“Even though the aggregate figure doesn’t show much movement there has been a bit of variation in the Canberra market,” she said.

Among suburbs with more than 30 recorded instances of weekly asking rents, Dickson experienced the highest year-on-year change for both houses and units.

The median house rent of $628 per week is up 14.1 per cent year-on-year and the median unit rent of $480 is 17.1 per cent year-on-year.

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There has been a great deal of development in Dickson recently, and McGrath Dickson director and property manager Lou Seminara said the suburb’s “revival”, was a factor behind the increase in the median house and unit rent.

“The light rail has had an impact on Dickson and the suburb has gone through a sense of revival – there are more apartments and with those more commercial offerings making it more attractive,” he said.

Holder house rents had the second-highest growth, up 12 per cent to $560, and Melba, up 10.4 per cent to $530.

A number of suburbs had a drop in the median house rents, with Inner South suburbs having the hardest falls.

Rents in Griffith fell 7.2 per cent, year-on-year, with the median now sitting at $738. Deakin’s median house rent dropped 6.2 per cent to $798 per week and Yarralumla fell 5.5 per cent to $780.

The suburb with the most expensive asking rent for houses is Red Hill, where the median is $820 per week. Followed by Deakin and Yarralumla at $798 and $780, respectively.

Belconnen – the suburb – has the lowest median asking rent for houses at $440 per week. Banks is at $450, Holt at $460 and Isabella Plains at $468. 

While house rents stagnated on a city level, the median unit rent of $470 per week is up 4.4 per cent on this time last year.

Canberra suburbs with highest rent increases – units