Rental affordability improved marginally across Australia, the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) announced this week.
The REIA’s latest quarterly Housing Affordability Report shows that rental affordability around the country improved by 0.3 percentage points over June quarter 2021.
REIA President Adrian Kelly said that the proportion of income required for rent across the nation has decreased to 22.8%.
“Affordability improved in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia and stabilised in Tasmania and the ACT”, Kelly said.
“Western Australia remained the most affordable place to rent, with median income-to-rent ratio sitting at 19% while Tasmania was the least affordable with 29.9% of median income required to meet rental commitments.
Kelly noted that house sales continued to record premiums over the quarter and this was reflected in affordability.
“The weighted average capital city median house price increased to $913,946 and average loans size increased by 8.3%.
“Income required to meet loan repayments increased by 2.1 percentage points to 35.4% and increased 1.9 percentage points compared to the same quarter of 2020”, he concluded.
Housing affordability improved over the June quarter in Tasmania and the Northern Territory but declined in all other States and this trillion capital territory. NSW had the largest increase of home loans at 11.1% which was $70,311 higher than last quarter.
