Robyn Stoddart and partner Joel found rentals in Melbourne were more recently renovated compared with those in London
(Picture: Handout)Melbourne, Australia’s sports-mad city, is a favourite with Brits, the top choice for 15 per cent of us moving down under.
It’s regularly rated as one of the most liveable cities in the world with low crime rates, efficient public transport and a lively cultural and arts scene while its south coast location means it misses out on the blasts of summer heat that blanket Sydney and Perth. Explore the maze of laneways threaded through the city, feel at home with the Victorian architecture or explore the city parks and beaches: the lifestyle is dreamy.
Renting a property is not quite so dreamy. The city currently has a severe shortage of rental homes with an average rental vacancy rate of 1.9 per cent (an average rate of three per cent is considered healthy). In the year to October 2022, PropTrack, Australian real estate analysists, reported that average rents citywide rose 10 per cent combined with a 25.7 per cent decrease in rental stock.
Yet while those figures have caused rents to increase and the Green political party to call for rent controls, median rents remain below their pre-Covid levels. Rents across Australia’s main cities have seen an average rise of 18 per cent since March 2020 while in Melbourne the increase has been a relatively modest seven per cent.
Here, two long-term renters in the city explain their own experience of renting in Australia’s so-called ‘garden city’.
Lauren O’Reilly, 34, left the UK 12 years ago and now works in Melbourne as a People and Culture Manager for a technological firm.
“It can be tricky finding a place to rent, depending on the area you choose and the time of year. It always takes longer in our summer. However I think it is much easier than trying to find somewhere in London. My partner and I pay AS$2,173 (£1,200) per calendar month for our two-bedroom apartment of about 143 square metres in Black Rock. We are a short walk from the beach and about 20 kilometres from the city centre.
I have lived in five different apartments since arriving here, each in different areas of Melbourne. I started out in the city centre, then moved a few kilometres out to a suburb of Chapel Street called Prahan for my next two properties and then moved on to Balaclava, 7 kms from the city centre. We headed further down the coast to Black Rock four years ago.
Our landlord is fair and responds pretty quickly when we ask for repairs. He has put in a new bathroom while we have been here and a new air conditioning unit. My partner is a painter and during Covid we did a fair amount of decorating ourselves.
Black Rock has a real sense of community and we love being by the beach so count ourselves pretty lucky. Every suburb of Melbourne is so different and we love that variety. Plus getting around the city is very easy.
The frustrating thing about renting here for me is that some landlords have a bad attitude to pets. Up until recently landlords could reject potential tenants who had pets or evict you if they found out you had one. We have been fortunate with most of our landlords – all apart from one.
Seven years ago we moved into a great property and the landlady was a complete nightmare. She would turn up unannounced and was always walking past the house, looking in to make sure we were following the rules – she insisted that we did not wear shoes in the house for example. We had two cats and had had no issue with them at our previous rentals so had no idea this would be a big deal. Within 48 hours of us moving in we were contacted by the rental agent to say we had 24 hours to remove the cats or would be evicted and ended up paying for them to be flown back to the UK to my family.
Fashion photographer Robyn Stoddart, 33, from Buckinghamshire has been in Australia for a decade, living first in Byron Bay, Sydney before moving to Melbourne in 2015.
“When I arrived in Melbourne there was always a good supply of potential homes to rent and normally when you went for property viewing, you would expect around 10 other couples to also show up.
Initially I lived in the inner suburb of Elwood in a couple of two-bedroom apartments, paying between AUD$800 and 900 (£440-£500) a month for my room. With my partner Joel, I moved every year between 2018 until 2021. Overall, I would say that the properties were all more recently renovated compared with what you find in London with brand new carpets, updated bathrooms and generally freshly painted. New rules mean that you are now allowed to paint and decorate your rental home as well.
In 2021 we made the decision to move out of Melbourne to Rosebud in the Mornington Peninsula, around one hour away, where we have been for over a year with a private landlord who takes care of us when we need it. I can’t think of any real frustrations of renting in Melbourne but there were plenty of good things. It was affordable for most of the time I was in the city and everything is easy to reach on good public transport. In most suburbs you can also park for free anywhere and living close to the beach was something I personally loved.
Rental rules in Melbourne
Rental rules were changed in Victoria, Melbourne’s state, in March 2021.
Key details include:
- A ban on rental bids. Rentals must be advertised with a fixed price.
- Landlords can only request a maximum of one month’s rent as a bond and can ask for no more than one month’s rent in advance.
- There must be provision for rent to be paid by a fee-free method.
- Pets are allowed if they have written consent from the landlord.
