The past five years have witnessed arguably the worst rental crisis in modern Australian history.
According to Cotality, nationally advertised rents soared by 43.8% in the five years to Q3 2025.
This meant that the typical tenant household seeking to rent the median advertised home would need to spend $10,600 more annually than they would have five years earlier.
As result, the percentage of income that a median Australian household requires to meet rental payments was a record high of 33.4% in Q3 2025, according to Cotality:
One unfortunate byproduct of the surge in rents is that it has forced Australians to live in group housing to economise on living costs.According to new data from REA Group, flatmates.com.au monthly active members have grown by around 60% over the past five years (i.e., between January 2021 and November 2025).
Cost of living was the key driver motivating over half of the respondents into share house living (55.0%). In a similar vein, for those listing a spare room, 57.7% did so due to rate rises and financial stress.
Demographics continued to shift in 2025 as more older Australians turned to shared accommodation. Those aged 55-64 made up 14.5% of respondents, up from 9% a year ago.
Finally, 7 in 10 respondents still believe the Australian Dream of owning a property is unattainable for young people.
Housing affordability—both purchasing and renting—is set to worsen in the period ahead.
The latest price forecasts from SQM Research suggest that dwelling values could rise by between 6% and 10% across the combined capital cities in 2026, easily eclipsing household income growth:
The rental crisis is also likely to worsen given that the national rental vacancy rate is tracking at a record low of 1.5% following a 17.0% decline in listings over the past 12 months across the combined capital cities:
Source: Cotality
This tightening of rental vacancies has resulted in a reacceleration of rents, according to Cotality:
Source: Cotality
