Russell Island on country’s top 20 list for cheap housing

A bay island has been named one of the country’s cheapest addresses where rents have gone down and vacancy rates gone up. Check out the island’s top 5 cheapest properties.

An island in Moreton Bay has been named as a haven for cheap rental properties with a recent report putting it in the country’s top 20 rental suburbs.

Russell Island, a short ferry trip from the mainland, made RentRabbit’s Better Renting quarterly report, which pinpointed 20 tenant-friendly Australian addresses where unit rental prices have gone down and vacancies have gone up over the past year.

Eight of the cheap suburbs were in NSW, four in Victoria, and three in Queensland and Western Australia, while South Australia and Canberra both chalked up one each.

Top of the list was Coolbinia in Western Australia, where a house rental was $510 a week compared with $580 at the same time last year with the number of vacant properties up by 7 per cent.

Others on the list included Robertson, near Sunnybank at number 19, where an average rental was $365 a week and Heathwood, at number 20, where the average weekly rental was $400.

But Russell Island was the cheapest with an average rent of $225 a week, according to the list, compiled over four months to the end of April.

One of the rental properties available on the island this week for $250 including electricity, was a one bedroom “unit” inside a large shed on Reading St.

The advertisement said it was “an apartment, unit, flat” with a mezzanine floor, double roller doors and side entrance door.

However the ad also stated for “storage only due to council regulations”.

While the national vacancy rate dropped to a tight 1 per cent over the past year, Russell Island’s vacancy rate increased by 1.8 per cent.

Island real estate agent Greg Ahern said the market had tightened significantly over the past year since NBN had rolled out and a Woolworths had opened within walking distance to the ferry terminal.

Russell Island Real Estate agent Greg Ahern and Dani Ridgway outside the island business which is keeping pace with a rise in demand as prices start to rise.

“The rent for an average two- or three-bedroom house was about $250 but it is now between $275 and $400 a week, depending on the property,” he said.

“Russell Island is definitely a cheap paradise and one of the lowest priced spots in the country to rent but that is changing and more people are looking at buying here with prices starting at about $350,000,” Mr Ahern said.

“Because it is becoming so popular, our rental supply is dwindling and most properties are rented out within a week of us getting them.”

A house in Reading St, Russell Island where rent is $350 a week

The island has brushed off its dark days as a hideout for people on the run after the 2015 sentencing of Bradley Hazelton, a father living a double life after a tragic car crash in Austinmer, south of Sydney, NSW, in 2000 which killed his friend.

RentRabbit said to qualify as tenant-friendly, suburbs needed to have at least 1000 properties and be within 250km of a capital city.

Vacancy rates had to have increased by at least 0.5 per cent over the past year and weekly rent either decreased or remained the same.

RentRabbit co-founder Ben Pretty said it was alarming that only 50 suburbs nationally qualified as tenant-friendly.

“Throughout much of Australia, the data shows that vacancy rates are low, vacancy rates are falling, and rents are rising,” he said.

“Thankfully, though, there are some markets where vacancy rates are increasing and rents are decreasing, which means tenants aren’t completely out of options.”