Sydney’s most undersupplied suburbs to rent and buy
Tenants in Sydney suburbs hardest hit by the rental crisis have as few as three houses to choose from, with many facing share house accommodation or couch surfing to stay off the streets.
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Young buyers and renters in Sydney are facing the dire prospect of not having a home to live in as the true extent of the city’s housing shortage is laid bare.
Data provided exclusively by SuburbTrends shows renters in the hardest hit suburbs have just three or four available houses to choose from, with many facing shared accommodation or couch surfing just to keep a roof over their heads.
In many suburbs, the estimated level of new rentals being built is below half the yearly percentage needed to satisfy population growth alone.
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Lane Cove West had the smallest percentage of available homes with just one house and no units listed in a suburb of 321 rental properties.
Punchbowl in the Canterbury Bankstown region had the second lowest percentage of available rentals, with the three houses and seven units currently advertised for rent making up 0.7 per cent of the overall 1440 rentals in the suburb.
It comes as PropTrack data shows Sydney’s vacancy rates plummeted 59 per cent since the start of the pandemic and almost halved in the space of one year to 1.7 per cent.
The Warringah region and the Richmond to Windsor area had vacancies lower than 1 per cent, representing a chronically tight market where the majority of rentals were snapped up within 21 days of being listed.
SuburbTrends managing director Kent Lardner said renters were being forced to consider shared accommodation due to the limited options available.
“The situation’s dire and the problem’s not going away,” Mr Lardner said.
New housing stock growth rates were well below the average population growth rate of 1.5 per cent per annum.
In the case of new properties being offered for rent, future supply was looking especially scarce with each region listed having an estimated pipeline of 0.68 per cent or less in new housing per year.
“The amount of rental stock is really falling behind,” he said.
“If we’re not growing housing stock by at least the population growth rate, then we’re in trouble.”
He stressed the figures were a “best case” estimate that didn’t take into account how many dwelling approvals would ultimately be completed.
“With the amount of builders going bust, it’s likely completion rates will be significantly lower than what the approvals show,” he said.
The situation for homebuyers was similarly dire.
The SuburbTrends data showed those looking to buy a home had literally no properties to choose from in some of the most undersupplied suburbs while the portion of properties for sale in others made up less than a quarter of a per cent of total private dwellings.
South Turramurra, North Wahroonga and St Ives Chase had the worst undersupply in Sydney.
Mr Lardner said many first homebuyers could only afford apartments, which tended to have less capital growth than houses.
Mirvac general manager residential development NSW Toby Long said there had been an increase in demand for larger apartments “driven in part by the price gap between apartments and established homes.”
“Everyone deserves a well-designed, affordable place to call home, but this basic right is becoming increasingly out of reach for many Sydneysiders with constrained supply impacting affordability,” Mr Long said.
He said all levels of government needed to work together to ensure there was enough land to “support the delivery of a diverse range of housing” and “help address the increasing affordability challenge.”
The Property Council of Australia called for a “Premier’s priority” on housing supply after figures released by the ABS showed building approvals were at a 10 year low.
“We know there is a chronic undersupply of housing,” Acting NSW executive director Adina Cirson said.
“We know we need around 725,000 homes across greater Sydney by 2036 and we know we are about 100,000 homes behind our existing targets.”
“We need to make sure housing supply is being delivered in the areas of population growth – we can’t just rely on places in Western Sydney to do the heavy lifting.”
Erin Riley said she was grateful she and her partner Matt Hatton were able to escape the tight rental market and create a sense of security for their young family.
The pair recently built a house after purchasing land in the first release of Mirvac’s “The Village” at Menangle in Sydney’s south west.
“To be able to put down roots in a community where we’re hoping to call home for 20 or 30 years – that’s really exciting,” she said.
“There’s so much stability – and we’re so grateful for that.”
She said they decided to build a home after struggling to find a house within their budget.
“There’s such a shortage of existing homes and finding something we could afford that met our family’s needs was quite challenging,” Ms Riley said.
“We were able to get a lot more for our money than we would have otherwise with an existing home.”
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