Sunbury is one of the cheapest Melbourne suburbs to rent a house, new rental data has revealed.
Three-bedroom houses have come in as particularly low priced compared to other suburbs, but a local expert says good quality homes in Sunbury are still performing well.
The median rent of Sunbury’s 885 rental properties was $340 in June – compared to the Melbourne-wide median of $400, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ latest rental report.
However, Sunbury’s median rent does mark an increase on June last year, when it was $330.
Sunbury’s 355 three-bedroom rental homes have one of the lowest median rents across Melbourne at $355, compared to the city-wide median of $380.
Brad Teal Real Estate business development manager Alisha Mcfarlane said prices could have been “a little bit more conservative” because there was a lot of stock on Sunbury’s rental market.
“At the moment there’s a huge amount of stock for lease,” she said.
Ms Mcfarlane said the number of rental properties available was a combination of recently completed development sites and houses being bought by investors.
“There’s been a lot of out of town and interstate investors looking at Sunbury at the moment, so they’re then putting homes that were once owner-occupied onto the market,” she said.
But Ms Mcfarlane said she was a little surprised by the data showing Sunbury as having cheaper rental prices.
“By the same token I would still suggest that a good quality, family home in a good location, or even a townhouse in a good location are still performing really well,” she said.
“If you’ve got a good quality family home in the right location, they still do achieve a pretty reasonable return.”
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016 census results revealed that 21.2 per cent of Sunbury residents are renting, while 76.4 per cent are homeowners.
