Rents on new leases are up by about half since 2021 in the states that publish them
Rental bond records show what tenants agreed to pay on new leases, quarter by quarter. In New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania, the typical suburb's rent rose 49% between 2021 and the year to June 2026. Of the 1,402 suburbs and postcodes with figures in both years, rents were higher in 1,396. The data covers only the states that publish it; Victoria, the ACT and the Northern Territory are not included.
Every rental bond lodged with a state records the weekly rent the tenant agreed to. Four states have published those records, or medians from them, regularly since at least 2021, so they show how much more a new lease costs now than it did then.
This covers only part of the country. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania have the figures back to 2021. Western Australia's go back to March 2023. Victoria publishes yearly figures for groups of suburbs only, and the ACT and the Northern Territory publish none (we compared what each state publishes earlier this month). None of the figures below include them.
Up by about half in four years
We compared each suburb's median rent on new leases in 2021 with the median for the year to June 2026, using the median of the four quarterly medians in each year, wherever a quarter had at least 10 new bonds.
| 3-bedroom houses | 2-bedroom units | Suburbs or postcodes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales (postcodes) | +38% ($510 to $700) | +47% ($450 to $687) | 426 |
| Queensland | +50% ($417 to $642) | +52% ($371 to $582) | 621 |
| South Australia | +52% ($410 to $617) | +53% ($334 to $510) | 316 |
| Tasmania | too few | too few | 39 |
Typical (median) suburb or postcode. Rents are weekly medians in 2021 and in the year to June 2026.
Across all rentals, the typical suburb's rent rose 49%: by 41% in New South Wales, 51% in Queensland, 54% in South Australia and 30% in Tasmania, where far fewer suburbs have enough bonds to compare. Of the 1,402 suburbs and postcodes with figures in both years, the rent was higher in 1,396, the same in 2 and lower in 4.
Since 2023, all five states
Western Australia's records start in March 2023, so for all five states we compared the year to March 2024 with the year to June 2026, across all rentals.
| Typical change | Suburbs or postcodes | |
|---|---|---|
| Western Australia | +22% | 312 |
| South Australia | +18% | 308 |
| Queensland | +17% | 643 |
| Tasmania | +15% | 78 |
| New South Wales (postcodes) | +14% | 429 |
Apartments near universities rose most
The biggest rises were for 2-bedroom units close to universities in Sydney and Brisbane. In postcode 2032, Kingsford and Daceyville next to UNSW, the median agreed rent went from $450 a week in 2021 to $860 (+91%). In Ultimo, home to UTS, it went from $590 to $1,115 (+89%), and in postcode 2000, the Sydney CBD, from $750 to $1,375 (+83%). Around the University of Queensland, units rose 71% in Taringa ($377 to $645), 70% in St Lucia ($400 to $680) and 67% in Toowong ($450 to $750).
Those rises started from a low point: in 2021 Australia's border was closed to most international students. For all six, 2021 was the cheapest year since the figures begin, and most of the rise came in 2022 and 2023: in Kingsford and Daceyville, from $450 to $760 in two years.
In Queensland and South Australia, cheaper suburbs rose faster
For 3-bedroom houses in Queensland, the quarter of suburbs with the lowest rents in 2021 rose by a typical 59%; the quarter with the highest rents rose 41%. In South Australia it was 62% against 44%. In New South Wales there was little difference (39% and 36%).
In regional Queensland, 3-bedroom houses in Dalby went from $275 a week to $497 (+81%), in Kingaroy from $305 to $527 (+73%) and in Warwick from $295 to $510 (+73%). In Adelaide's outer north, they went from $274 to $481 in Davoren Park (+76%) and from $287 to $500 in Elizabeth Downs (+74%); in Murray Bridge, from $272 to $460 (+69%).
The smallest rises for houses were mostly in suburbs with higher rents to begin with and in regional and mining towns: 29% in Brisbane's Ashgrove ($600 to $775), 12% in postcode 2630 around Cooma, and none at all in Roxby Downs, where the median stayed at $365.
How we measured
- Bond figures are the states' own: quarterly medians as published in Queensland (Residential Tenancies Authority) and South Australia (Consumer and Business Services); medians we calculated from every bond lodged in New South Wales (Fair Trading), Tasmania (Department of Justice, private rentals only) and Western Australia (Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, via the Housing Data Exchange).
- A suburb's figure for a year is the median of its quarterly medians, counting only quarters with at least 10 new bonds, and needs at least three such quarters in both years compared.
- New South Wales publishes by postcode, which can cover several suburbs. "Units" means flats and apartments. "All rentals" includes rooms and boarding in Queensland and South Australia, and every kind of rental in Western Australia, but not in New South Wales, so it is not compared between states; each state is compared only with itself.
- Western Australia's data has no bedrooms or type of home, so it appears only in the all-rentals comparison from 2023.
Suburb pages in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia now show how the rent on new leases has changed beside the latest figures, wherever there are enough bonds.