Why is rent so high in Australia, and when will it ease?
Rent is a supply-and-demand story, and both sides are pulling the wrong way. Vacancy sits near record lows (roughly 1% nationally, tighter in Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane), while population growth has run well ahead of the rate at which new homes are being finished. When demand outruns supply that hard, rents rise until one side gives.
So what eases it? Either population growth slows, or completions speed up — and the home-building pipeline is running behind the national target. On the fundamentals, that means rent pressure is likely to persist into 2026 and only ease gradually as building catches up, not snap back.
Will building more homes bring rents down?
Over time, yes — supply is the only durable fix, because it's the side of the equation that's been missing. But it works with a lag: homes take years to approve and build, and the current pipeline is behind the pace needed to close the gap. Short bursts of migration can widen the shortfall faster than construction narrows it, which is why the pressure has been so persistent.
Is MPLC's rent view a forecast?
We're deliberately careful here. Our strength is the supply-and-demand balance — vacancy, the building pipeline and population flows — not a precise rent-price forecast, which is a genuinely hard thing to pin down. So we give you the direction and the drivers honestly, and we don't put false precision on a number we can't stand behind. That candour is the point of an independent read.