The humble share house is having a resurgence, but this time, your roomies are your sisters, parents or grandparents.
According to CoreLogic June 2024 data, there is strong rental growth trends in larger dwellings – potentially reflecting the formation of share houses or multiple family households, with an 8.7 per cent rise in rent for houses with five bedrooms or more.
Belle Property Rochedale South property manager Vinh Tran said larger homes garnered plenty of attention from multigenerational families and were a rare offering in the rental space.
Mr Tran was fielding “multiple enquiries” on a five-bedroom, four-bathroom property at 50 Devon Street Rochesale South, currently up for rent at $900pw.
“You often don’t see a lot of five bed homes with a granny flat like 50 Devon come onto the rental market,” he said.
“When you do, the prospective tenants are usually large families who want everyone to be able to have their own space.”
CoreLogic statistics revealed there had been substantial slowdown in the rent growth of smaller dwellings, with annual growth in one-bedroom units and studios slowing from 16.8 per cent in the year to April 2023 to 7.1 per cent in the past 12 months.
CoreLogic Head of Residential Research Australia, Eliza Owens, said large rental properties may actually be more feasible for renters in share situations, including reforming group households and multi-generational households.
“Interestingly, larger rental properties are showing more resilient rent growth, despite being more expensive,” Ms Owens said.
“CoreLogic’s newly launched bedroom count metric – which analyses housing market performance segmented by the number of bedrooms – reveals a slowdown in rental growth for dwellings with fewer bedrooms.
“For houses, rents increased 8.4 per cent nationally in the year to June, and this ranged from a 7.6 per cent rise in houses with up to two bedrooms, to 8.7 per cent in larger houses with five bedrooms or more.”
Mr Tran said property managers across Logan watched the same prospective tenants apply for rentals for “months on end” before landing one.
“It’s still crazy out there,” he said.
“You see the same names coming up and tenants who go above and beyond on their application and still don’t get selected.
“We can’t control it and we really feel for them, it’s just so competitive.
“Property managers always feel relieved for these tenants when they finally find a place and the owner accepts them.”
