Share house demand soars through rental crisis and high prices
Demand for share houses has boomed as renters struggle to secure tenancy off the market with limited availability and sky high prices.
Demand for share houses has boomed as home seekers continue to struggle with Sydney’s ongoing housing challenges.
New data released Wednesday by flatmates.com.au, a website where members list and search for vacant rooms, revealed they had over 1 million page visits in January alone.
There was a huge jump in member sign ups in January, with 67,700 new members joining the platform in the past month, which was a 22 per cent increase month on month.
Amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and increasingly tight rental market, demand for share house living has skyrocketed.
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Many Sydney siders are turning to share accommodation due to struggling to secure a rental off the market with shortages of available properties, or being priced out of the rental market entirely. Others are using the platform to find a new housemate to combat rising costs.
Community manager at flatmates.com.au Claudia Conway said January is usually the busiest period for share accommodation, with lots of domestic and international travel across cities and states, but challenges with the rental market has compounded this.
“The university semester is about to start, many members are looking to move for new jobs, most leases are renewed at this time of year, and migration is high as people flock to Australia for that quintessential Aussie summer experience,” she said.
“Add to this a cost-of-living and rental crisis leading even more people to turn to share accommodation than usual.”
Tamarama and Bronte were the most popular suburbs in the whole country where demand far outweighed supply.
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Tamarama had only one room listed in the past month and 344 room seekers, where Bronte had four rooms available and 844 seekers.
Other areas in NSW with an imbalance of demand and supply was Clovelly, City of Sydney, Barangaroo, St Peters and Eveleigh.
There was also a surge in new property listings on flatmates.com.au.
“In good news for room seekers, we’ve had an 18.8 per cent increase in new property listings since the same time last year,” Ms Conway said.
“Despite this, demand still significantly outweighs supply, with the seeker to lister ratio of many suburbs over 100-1.”
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Originally published as Share house demand soars through rental crisis and high prices