Half of western Sydney hit by rental stress

A staggering one in two tenants in western Sydney are under rental stress, alarming new figures have revealed.

NSW, which has the largest rental market in Australia, is currently facing a significant rental affordability crisis, according to Trina Jones, the inaugural NSW Rental Commissioner within NSW Fair Trading.

Jones has noted more than 35 per cent of renters are experiencing rental stress, defined as paying more than 30 per cent of household income on rent. In Western Sydney it sits at 50 per cent.

She advises there are over two million people in rental homes across the state.

Over 32.6 per cent of households in NSW are occupied private rental dwellings, and over 4.6 per cent of NSW households are living in social housing including public, community and Aboriginal Housing.

It is an industry of over 944,585 residential tenancies, 620,000 landlords, 61,000 agents, servicing 89,000 strata and community schemes of which an estimated 50 per cent of dwellings are rental homes.

Rental stress in western Sydney has hit 50 per cent. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

The Greater Sydney region’s median rent is $744 a week after an annual increase of 11 per cent, while the rest of NSW has a median rent of $408 a week, an annual increase of 3 per cent according to CoreLogic.

A healthy balance in the rental market has a three per cent vacancy rate, but the March quarter PropTrack vacancy rate for Sydney was 1.2 per cent, lower than the 1.4 per cent from the same time last year.

Properties advertised for rent on realestate.com.au are leasing quickly.

Rental properties averaged 17 days on site in Sydney in March 2024, the equal lowest days on site average figure since the beginning of 2017. There were 26 inquiries a rental listing as total Sydney rental listings fell 13 per cent annually, sitting 29 per cent lower than the average over the prior decade.

The rental commissioner recently advised the NSW Legislative Council of her concerns that more than half of renters are families with children. And around 11 per cent of renters over the age of 60.

“Increasing supply is critical to ensuring the viability of the rental market,” Jones said last month.

Over 90 per cent of rental properties are owned by individual investor landlords.

Some 71.5 per cent of investors own just one, 18.8 per cent own two or more and 9.7 per cent own 3 or more.

She described the private rental market as having a high turnover with an average of 300,000 bonds processed every year.

Despite people now renting for longer in life, the average tenancy per property is just 1.6 years.

Her forthcoming policy task is to create greater tenancy security while encouraging landlords to stick around.

Originally published as Half of western Sydney hit by rental stress