Gold Coast rental demand and prices lead country - and here is what you get for $795 per week
Gold Coast locals don’t lift an eyebrow - they are numb to the local property market insanity - but the country is going crazy over this Palm Beach unit price.
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Welcome to the Gold Coast, where you have the privilege to rent a prison cell-sized room for $795 per week.
But hey, at least it’s near the beach.
A two-bedroom unit in Palm Beach has made waves across social media as Australians lose their minds over how expensive property has become in this city.
The Gold Coast Highway property is spread over two levels, with living area and small kitchen downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs. But it’s the bedrooms that have people talking.
Each consists of bed and walls, because there is not much more space.
The first bedroom consists of a queen-sized bed, a window looking onto what appears to be a wall, and a built-in-robe. The second bedroom has two single beds, another window looking onto yet another wall, but no built-in-robe.
The agent leasing the property said the bedrooms measured approximately 2.5m x 3.5m, but said he had only stepped it out.
Given that a single bed measures 92cm wide, and a bedside table pictured in one photo comes in at 40cm wide (I know because my daughter has the same table … thanks Kmart), that’s 2.24m wide.
By comparison, a prison cell is 2m x 3m.
However, let’s not shame this property completely.
The fact is, by Gold Coast standards, this rental is affordable. At $795 per week, the property is just 170m from the beach, has on-site parking and is partially furnished, including new whitegoods, with airconditioning and internet, electricity and water bills included in the rent.
Of course, by actual affordability standards, whereby households should be paying less than 30 per cent of their income in rent, any household earning less than $2650 per week before tax would technically be in rental stress.
Honestly, it is expensive … but it actually does seem a fair price considering where our market is at – and that’s something that people who aren’t locals don’t seem to understand.
I’m not saying this kind of pricing is right, just that it’s, well, expected.
It does make me wonder which is worse … that we’re becoming numb to the insanity of our property market? Or that the rest of Australia still undervalues our city?
When it comes to our market, the shocking truth is that, according to the latest PropTrack data, it costs more to rent on the Gold Coast than it does to lease in Greater Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane.
The data showed that the median rent for a Gold Coast home in December was $850 a week and $680 for a unit and that, overall, the cost of renting on the Gold Coast increased by 7.1 per cent in the past year.
The gap between renting a house and a unit is also tightening, with the median cost of renting a Gold Coast unit increasing by 9.7 per cent over the past 12 months.
The only locations across Australia that are more expensive than the Gold Coast when it comes to median unit rental prices are five areas of Sydney.
Like proverbial frogs in a slowly boiling pot, we’ve become so accustomed to these crazy conditions we almost don’t notice that the heat is still rising.
Still, the fact that so many of our countrymen don’t acknowledge that we are a legitimate city these days is also slightly offensive.
TikTok account rachmcqueen1 or ‘Real Estate with Rachel’ highlighted this particular Palm Beach unit recently and while much of her assessment was fair, there were a few statements that mildly offended my little GC soul.
“I remember back in the day the Gold Coast used to be like ‘the affordable city’ because it’s not really a city compared to, like, other cities,” she said.
“But I do my best to keep on top of rental trends and read things like the Anglicare Rental Affordability Report that was recently released and the Gold Coast has actually got some of the lowest vacancy rates and most expensive rents in the entire country at the moment.”
To that last point: Umm, these statistics have been saying the same thing for about the past three years. This is not a new phenomenon.
As to her first point: Okay, maybe we’re not like other cities, but that’s only because we’re better.
Except, of course, when it comes to our rental prices.
But hey, it may cost $795pw for a prison-sized room in this city, but at least we’re always free to enjoy the beach.
That is, if we’re not too busy working to afford the privilege of this coastal lifestyle.
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Originally published as Gold Coast rental demand and prices lead country - and here is what you get for $795 per week
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