The cheapest areas to rent in Canberra

Canberra renters looking to avoid the worst of the city’s record-high rental costs should look no further than Belconnen and Tuggeranong.

According to Domain’s latest State of the Market Rental Report,  over the September quarter the two regions represented the best value in the ACT, with a median weekly asking rent for houses at $500 per week.

In the unit market, Belconnen and Woden are the cheapest regions in which to rent, both have a median weekly asking rent of $400.

On a suburb level, the cheapest house rents can be found in Holt at $440 per week, while Lyons has the cheapest unit rents at $350 per week.  

The most expensive rents were recorded in the Inner South, where the median weekly asking rent is the highest for both houses and units, at $750 and $500 respectively.

House rents in Deakin are the highest at $850 per week, while Forrest has the most expensive unit rents at $570.

Independent Property Group director of property management Hannah Gill said rents are high in the Inner South as they have been hardest hit by the ACT’s increasing land taxes.

“The Inner South’s larger blocks make the land tax more expensive,” she said.

Domain data shows that over the past 12 months, rent prices have grown across all regions and housing types in Canberra, and are expected to continue to rise with vacancy rates in the nation’s capital at 0.7 per cent, according to SQM research.

Ms Gill said despite multi-unit construction at a record high levels in Canberra, finished stock wasn’t meeting demand.

“Despite construction on the way, it hasn’t settled yet [and] when the stock does settle it’s absorbed very quickly by tenants,” she said.

Ms Gill reinforced the need for a diversity of stock and said there’s not “a lot of townhouses or houses at the moment”.

“There’s always a turnover of apartments because we see a lot of professionals moving around a lot, but people settle for longer in houses,” she said.

Domain senior research analyst Dr Nicola Powell said data showed rental house supply at a five-year low in the territory. For units, it’s at a two-year low.

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With rents at an all-time high, a move across the border could provide even better bang for your buck with median weekly rents in Queanbeyan up to $120 less than Canberra. Median weekly asking rents for houses and units in Queanbeyan sit at $470 and $280 respectively.

Peter Blackshaw Real Estate Queanbeyan & Jerrabomberra principal Alexandra AhKey said Queanbeyan’s convenient location is often overlooked.

“The most obvious benefit to renting in Queanbeyan is the cost, but you are in such a good location, it’s almost like being in the inner parts of Canberra as you are only a 15-minute drive from the city centre,” she said.

Ms AhKey said landlords had the benefit of avoiding higher land taxes in NSW as the tax is only payable if a person owns a combined value of land more than $629,000.

Canberra renters are facing all-time high rental prices in both the housing and unit markets, with the house rents equal highest in the nation with Sydney.

Dr Powell said with the new year fast approaching, Canberra is bracing for its busiest rental period with an influx of new students and graduates moving to the capital, and this could possibly add further strain on the rental market.

“When you look at the trend for both houses and units in Canberra, it’s been moving upwards for sometime now and it isn’t easing,” she said.

“It says to me that we will see a tightening of the rental market and we are likely to see, particularly in the peak period, rents moving higher.”