The 10 cheapest areas to rent in regional Australia

Living in Australia’s capital cities may soon become a thing of the past as more people pack their bags in search of a lifestyle change. The increasing trend of working remotely has meant that living in regional and rural parts of Australia have become an attractive alternative.

With rental prices fluctuating in the country’s major cities, towns further out have become a drawcard for many prospective renters looking for that extra space at an affordable price.

The latest Domain Rent Report, released on Thursday, revealed a raft of affordable houses in towns with median asking rents starting at just $180 per week.

Domain senior research analyst Dr Nicola Powell said prices across regional Australia had increased in the three months to September, with very few areas recording a slight decline.

“Affordability will be driving people to move to these regional areas and the ability to work from home has changed our location preferences and has opened the door of where we can live,” Dr Powell said.

“The desirability for lifestyle locations and not living in high-density areas, coupled with remote working, has seen more people move. We’ve seen that trend already because capital cities have become grossly expensive particularly in Sydney and Melbourne.”

When looking at the top 10 most affordable areas to rent a house in regional Australia, the Western Australian town of Coolgardie topped the list with a median asking rent of $180 per week, a price that remained unchanged year-on-year.

This was followed by Murweh in Queensland at $198 per week, down 1.3 per cent year-on-year; and Port Pirie in South Australia at $215 per week, up 2.4 per cent year-on-year.

Coolgardie was the birthplace of the gold rush, and is now a tourist destination because of its rich history and heritage buildings.

Western Australian property manager Rebecca Bateman of John Matthew & Sons echoed the results, noting that Coolgardie’s distance to the next town made it an affordable area for many renters, particularly due to its small-town mining appeal.

“There’s not a great deal of stock there because it’s almost 40 kilometres from Kalgoorlie [the next town], so the rental prices are priced quite reasonably,” she said.

Interestingly, six regions in South Australia took out the majority of the list as some of the cheapest areas to rent a house.

Brodie Lavis, director of Lavis Real Estate, in South Australia said the regional areas across South Australia had seen a surge in inquiries amid the pandemic with young families and retirees looking for a tree change.

“I think that COVID had a negative impact on the property market in the capital cities but that wasn’t happening for regional areas, quite the opposite actually,” he said.

“There’s hardly any available vacant properties around and when they do become available, there’s a huge amount of applicants for it. I’ve been in the industry for almost 20 years and I can say the high demand in rental properties at this present time is unprecedented.”

Last week, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) released a discussion paper, The Pathways to Regional Recovery from COVID-19, ahead of a full report being released in February.

The paper found that people living in regional areas were likely to be far more vulnerable as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The paper’s lead author and research fellow at the University of Tasmania’s School of Social Sciences, Julia Verdouw, said many people living in regional cities and towns across the country were already in vulnerable positions before the pandemic hit.

People living in regional areas were more likely to be on low incomes and many were already struggling to pay rent or mortgages. Adding to the pressure were people moving from the city to regional areas were pushing up house prices and rent.

According to Domain data, the small town of Alexandrina in South Australia had the strongest yearly growth across all Australian regional areas, up 30.4 per cent year-on-year to $450 per week.

South Australian property manager Kayla Schwartz of Harcourts South Coast said the lower-than-usual stock levels combined with high demand had bumped the rental prices up.

“Lately, we don’t even have to advertise a property because we have a pool of existing renters who are looking for something. For the properties that are listed for rent, they are generally on the market for about two weeks before they’re swooped up,” Ms Schwartz said.

“We have a lot of people who have relocated from the city and interstate looking for that lifestyle change, that sea change, amid COVID.”