The Carrie Bradshaw index: Sydney’s best, and worst, suburbs for singles
Want to live the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle – aka fun, single, and affordable in Sydney? Here’s where you need to live and where to avoid.
If you’re single and want to live the life of Carrie Bradshaw – fun and affordable in one of the best cities in the world – this is where you should be living.
Its called the ‘Carrie Bradshaw Index’, taking the concept of the iconic Sex and the City character affording to live by herself in a New York City apartment.
Switching the skyline view from the Empire State Building to the Harbour Bridge – these are the most affordable suburbs in Sydney for singles to rent.
Chief economist Nerida Consibee at Ray White Group crunched the data to reveal that for the average single person it is “unsurprisingly unaffordable to live in Sydney.”
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“Its tough … if we have a look at the average income and compare it to the average income required to rent an apartment, it's a very expensive city, but it is also very high earning city but there is a mismatch there,” she said.
When affordability means spending no more than 30 per cent of your income on rent, a weekly income would have to be $2,278 to rent an apartment in the harbour city stress-free.
The analysis used ABS data on average weekly incomes and compared it to median unit rents to deem the most affordable.
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For single renters, Hunters Hill was the most affordable, where rent was a median of $600 per week and incomes were more than four times that at $2765. Singles would only be paying 21.7 per cent of their income to live 9km from the CBD and being a harbourside suburb, potentially scoring a waterview.
That was followed by Lilyfield where rent was $563 per week and incomes were $2507.
“What was surprising is that the rent to income ratio in Sydney was relatively affordable in expensive suburbs, not because rent was cheap but because incomes are high,” Ms Consibee added.
Among the other affordable suburbs where the income to rent ratio was affordable included Elizabeth Bay, Birchgrove, Mosman and Balmain East, where rents ranged between $650-$750.
Social demographer Simon Kuestenmacher revealed that like Carrie Bradshaw, young singles wanted to be in the heart of the city.
“For the young, the most common assumption is that you want to partner up and you’re working, so you want to stay in commutable distance to your job.”
Cutting down travel time and living close to career opportunities was a big motivator for where young singles chose to rent, according to the demographer.
“Young singles tend to live near the city centre, that's where the dating activities happen and where bars and restaurants and culture is, and if you don’t spend all your time with your family or partner you consume in more of these activities,” he said.
“So you want to be smack bang in the middle of town … but quite quickly you realise that single households in these suburbs pay a premium to live close to the office towers.
“It’s expensive to live a single life – you can’t share the basic costs of a house with another income earner … which is okay if you have a juicy income.”
Haymarket, right in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, was listed as the least affordable suburb for singles. Singles would be paying a whopping 79 per cent of their income, paying $1100 per week, only earning $1384 weekly.
Comparatively, Elizabeth Bay, only three km from Sydney’s central business distract, was listed as the third most affordable suburb, mainly due to the suburb’s high income earners which was a weekly median of $2806 compared to the $650 rent.
In Mascot and Eastgardens, both areas less than 10 km from the city centre, were among the least affordable where rents were $1730 and $1575 respectively.
However, the other side of the single demographic was older people, who may be retired still living in big family homes even after partners had pass away which could be “catastrophic,” according to Mr Kuestenmacher.
“Statistically they’re in a car dependent suburb which is a catastrophe – your mental health already goes far down when your partner dies and if you live in the car dependent suburb your increasingly less likely to leave the house and it compounds and it hurts you.”
“They’re embedded in their local areas and a slave to their routine, it takes a proactive effort to move out of that,” he said. “For ageing couples they should move to a walkable community while they’re in their seventies which would be beneficial for their mental heath in the short and long-term.”
Ms Conisbee confirmed that being an older single renter was incredibly difficult in Sydney.
“The fastest growing households are single person households, people are living longer and older people are more likely to want to live on their own and its very difficult to do that,” she said.
“We need more suitable and affordable housing for single people … people need to get used to living in smaller homes because if they want to live on their own, its easier to build affordable small homes.”
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MOST AFFORDABLE
| SUBURB | WEEKLY MEDIAN INCOME | MEDIAN RENT |
| Hunters Hill | $2,765 | $600 |
| Lilyfield | $2,507 | $563 |
| Elizabeth Bay | $2,806 | $650 |
| Birchgrove | $3,229 | $750 |
| Balmain East | $2,964 | $690 |
| Mosman | $2,958 | $715 |
| McMahons Point | $2,853 | $695 |
| Greenwich | $2,721 | $690 |
| Balmain | $2,933 | $750 |
| Cammeray | $2,830 | $730 |
| LEAST AFFORDABLE | ||
| Suburb | WEEKLY MEDIAN INCOME | MEDIAN RENT |
| Haymarket | $ 1,384 | $ 1,100 |
| Eastgardens | $ 1,730 | $ 1,000 |
| Mascot | $ 1,575 | $ 900 |
| Caringbah South | $ 1,984 | $ 1,100 |
| Turrella | $ 1,388 | $ 760 |
| Rockdale | $ 1,264 | $ 680 |
| Sylvania | $ 1,555 | $ 820 |
| Arncliffe | $ 1,429 | $ 750 |
| Bardwell Valley | $ 1,437 | $ 750 |
| Hillsdale | $ 1,292 | $ 650 |
Originally published as The Carrie Bradshaw index: Sydney’s best, and worst, suburbs for singles