The surprisingly high-end suburbs Aussie singles can afford
If being single isn’t hard enough – wading through Tinder, the sting of a ghosting – solo Aussies have a tough time paying the rent.
Looking for a new lease (and a new paramour)? There are options that offer the vibrant lifestyle that the unattached and fancy-free will appreciate.
Sydney is the most unaffordable market for a single Australian looking to lease, new data shows. However, Canberra is the best place to rent as a single, without chewing into a large slab of income.
Ray White did its own version of the Carrie Bradshaw Index and found that cities where there is apartment development provide the best chance for rent that doesn’t take a bite out of the weekly dinner date budget.
Respected publication The Economist devised the Carrie Bradshaw Index and Ray White’s research team used Australian Bureau of Statistic salaries data and compared it with median unit rental prices to establish an Aussie inventory.
Unexpectedly, the more high-end an area to buy into, the more affordable rents tends to be.
Sydney’s average weekly income this year is $2278, ABS figures show. This puts ordinary wage earners under rental pressure, Ray White economist’s Nerida Conisbee found in a report.
“To rent a unit affordably, you would need to earn at least $2,333 (based on average weekly unit rent for Sydney of $700 per week). In this case, Sydney is unaffordable for a single person to rent a unit,” Conisbee said in a statement.
“While it isn’t surprising that Sydney is unaffordable, very few capital cities are affordable with only the ACT, Darwin and Hobart with average incomes for a single person above that required to rent a unit. Sydney also isn’t the least affordable.
“The gap is biggest in Brisbane and Adelaide, likely reflecting very strong rental growth for apartments in these cities over the past three years. Regional South Australia and regional Victoria top the list as the most affordable places to be single renters of units.”
Drilling down into suburbs reveals that swish postcodes are attainable for single renters.
“By suburb, the results are a little bit more unusual,” Conisbeee said.
“Many of the most affordable for a single person are in expensive areas. This is because incomes are very high in expensive areas but typically rents are relatively low in comparison, particularly in areas where there has been a lot of development.”
Hunters Hill and Elizabeth Bay are examples of this in Sydney. In Melbourne, bougie St Kilda West is one to target and in Brisbane, Wilston is attractive and affordable.
“The main conclusion from this analysis is that there are affordable places in Australia for single people to rent a unit,” Conisbee said.
“For example, very high levels of development in Canberra has made it a good place to rent on your own. In comparison, a lack of unit developments in Brisbane and Adelaide have made renting a unit far more expensive for a single person. As a result, people in these cities need to spend quite a bit more than they earn to rent on their own.
“On a suburb level, the results not surprisingly show that renting on your own is fine if you earn a lot of money. Even better if you rent in an expensive suburb with a lot of apartments.
This is consistent with the lifestyle of Carrie Bradshaw – likely earning quite a bit of money (columnist) and renting in an expensive city with a lot of apartments (New York). For Australia, the Carrie Bradshaw index holds true.”
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