‘Expensive sleepover’: Shared bedroom rental listing sparks furore in Melbourne

A rental listing has emerged on Facebook asking for $1200 a month - excluding bills and a bond - for a bed in a shared room in a Melbourne apartment.

It’s been described as the “most expensive sleepover” – a bed in a shared room in Melbourne’s CBD for $300 a week.

The double bed is listed for one month at $1200 - excluding the cost of bills and a $1200 bond - and is cramped into an apartment room next to another bed.

“You will share the room with a guy,” the ad reads.

The room offers nice city views, the shared living space seems spacious and tidy, and the bills are included, but the questionable living arrangement was enough to ignite an online forum.

“Most expensive sleepover I’ve ever seen,” one person commented on the listing, which was posted to Facebook Marketplace and then shared on Reddit.

A bed in shared room Melbourne is listed for $1200 a month. Picture: Facebook

“How the f**k is it even legal to pull that sh*t,” another said.

“That’s disgraceful,” said another.

It comes as median weekly asking rents for apartments in the capital cities rose 22.2 per cent over the year to March, while wages rose only 3.7 per cent over the same period.

Unit rents increased more than six times faster in Melbourne, where the medians jumped 23.1 per cent to $480 per week.

And with relief unlikely, perhaps the living situation could become not so unusual.

Last week, the Reserve Bank governor said Australians would have to increase the size of their households as rents continued to soar across the country.

Appearing before a Senate estimates hearing, Philip Lowe warned not enough homes were being built to keep pace with population growth, driving up rents and exacerbating the cost of living crisis.

RBA Governor Philip Lowe. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The reopening of the international border and the return of international students and skilled migrants is forecast to increase Australia’s population by 2 per cent.

“Are there 2 per cent more houses? No,” he said. “We need more people on average to live in each dwelling.

“As rents go up, people decide not to move out of home, or you don’t have that home office, you get a flatmate … Kids don’t move out of home because the rent is too expensive, or you decide to get a flatmate or a housemate because that’s the price mechanism at work.”