Average rental prices push six-figure income earners into rental stress

By Liana Walker

Topic:Rental Housing

Rents have increased to more than half the average single-income take-home pay. (ABC News)

In short:

Housing advocacy group Everybody's Home has found renting a unit now costs more than half the median take-home pay of a single worker in every Australian capital city.

For someone earning $70,000, median Sydney rent would take 69 per cent of their weekly pay, while even Adelaide — the cheapest capital — would cost more than half their pay.

What's next?

The advocacy group is calling for more social housing and limits on rental increases.

The average apartment now costs half of the average Australian income to rent, with prices exceeding the 30 per cent housing stress mark even for six-figure earners, according to a new report.

Housing advocacy group Everybody's Home has found renting a unit now costs more than half the median take-home pay of a single worker in every Australian capital city.

The 2026 Priced Out report found apartments on average nationally cost $614 per week, making up 56 per cent of the take-home income of someone earning $70,000 — close to Australia's median income of $74,100.

Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said this was a "crisis that continues to get worse for the country's renters".

"We now see people earning really high incomes are still spending more than a third of their income on rent. If you are earning $130,000 a year, you are still spending more than a third on rent," she said.

"If you are earning an average income between $70,000 and $80,000 and living in a capital city, you are spending two-thirds of your income to afford the average rent.

The report found northern WA, the Gold Coast and Sydney were the three most expensive places to rent, followed by the Sunshine Coast and Perth.

"For a long time Sydney was ground zero for the crisis and it is still really bad news, shocking if you are a renter in Sydney," Ms Azize said.

"This year one of the most expensive... capital cities in the country is Perth and WA across the board has some really dire results.

"The Gold Coast has been surging every year that we have done this report and it is getting expensive to rent on the Gold Coast, even if you are earning $130,000 a year, you can't afford to rent on the Gold Coast. You would need to be in a couple or a multi-income family to make that work.

The report found, for someone earning $70,000, median Sydney rent would take 69 per cent of their weekly pay, while even Adelaide — the cheapest capital — would cost more than half.

Since the March 2025 Priced Out report, rents on average have increased by $48 a week — almost $2,500 a year.

This year's report found for an employee on $40,000, that increase would be the equivalent of 4.4 weeks of work per year; an employee on $70,000, 3.1 weeks and for someone earning $130,000 1.6 weeks.

Changes and recommendations

Changes to housing policy in this year's budget were predicted by the government to result in a median rental increase of $2 a week.

However, Ms Azize said rents had been surging by about 10 per cent every single year.

"I think it's a bit of an insult to people's intelligence when the industry comes out and says that any rent increases from here are going to be down to these changes," she said.

"Any renter in Australia knows that they get whacked with a huge rent increase every single year.

However, she said changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax were positive overall.

"They're changes that we've been pushing for a really long time," she said.

"They're really good news for anyone who wants to make the housing system fairer, especially those renters who are trying to save to buy.

"But what these results show us is that the federal government and state and territory governments especially now really need to turn their attention to renters and taking some steps to limit rent increases because there's really only so much that people can afford to pay.

Rental prices have been surging over the past few years. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)

The report recommends several recommendations, including the Australian government committing to build 940,000 public and community homes over the next 15 years; introducing limits on the number and amount of rent increases during a tenancy and ending no-grounds evictions.

"For the past four decades we've seen the federal government especially really step back from funding housing, from playing a role, and they're leaving it entirely to the private sector," Ms Azize said.

"We can see that over that same period renting has become incredibly expensive.

"So we need to see the government step back in.

"When you look around the world at the countries that are actually doing a good job of turning around their housing crisis or better yet avoiding it altogether, they're the countries where the government is playing a really big role in providing housing. They're not just leaving it to the private sector.

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