Regional Victorian towns where rental vacancy is the lowest

In areas of regional Victoria the rental vacancy rate is less than one per cent, while in other spots prices have surged more than 15 per cent. See where they are.

Regional and rural housing supply is at crisis point with some businesses resorting to alternative measures to continue operating.

Hepburn Shire Council chief executive officer Bradley Thomas said businesses in his shire were not able to be open for as long as they would like due to staff being unable to find a place to live.

“We’ve had a number of examples recently, particularly in businesses not being able to open seven days a week. Just because they can get the staff but can’t find housing for them,” he told the parliament of Victoria’s inquiry into the rental and housing affordability crisis in Victoria.

“So I’ve got multiple businesses in our community that have decided to only try four or five days a week, to reduce the number of staff that they need.”

He also told the inquiry rental stress in the Hepburn Shire was more than 50 per cent, significantly higher than the state average of 12 per cent.

In Victoria the rental vacancy rate tightened from 3.3 per cent to 2.2 per cent in the 12 months to July this year, while in regional Victoria the rates softened from 1.9 per cent to 2.3 per cent during the same time frame, REIV statistics show.

A new housing development in Warrnambool, a region with one of the tightest rental markets in the state. Picture: Nicole Cleary

In the Warrnambool and Western District, Shepparton and Goulburn, and Mildura and Mallee regions rental vacancy is the tightest in the state at 0.2, 0.6 and 0.8 per cent respectively.

In the East Gippsland and Wellington Shires as well as the Ballarat and Central Highlands regions, the rental vacancy rate is also less than 2 per cent.

The price of rentals has also increased across the state with the median price increasing 10 per cent to $440 a week.

In the Golden Plains Shire the median rental price increased by $78 a week in the 12 months to June this year, or 18.5 per cent, to $498, making it the fourth most expensive LGA to rent in regional Victoria.

Significant median rental price increases were also recorded in the Indigo Shire (17.5 per cent increase to $470), Greater Shepparton (16.7 per cent increase to $420) and Glenelg (12.7 per cent increase to $445).

Rural Councils Victoria chair Mary-Ann Brown also addressed the parliament of Victoria’s inquiry into the rental and housing affordability crisis where she said rural Victoria needed 87,400 new dwellings over the next 15 years, according to a Rural Councils Victoria report commissioned in 2021.

“The failure to provide those extra homes could mean an annual gross regional product loss ranging between $200 million and one billion dollars,” she told the hearing.

With accommodation becoming increasingly tough to find, employers in the state’s coastal southwest, and the horticultural heartlands of Sunraysia and the Goulburn Valley have started buying, building and renting accommodation for their workers.