Rental market statistics

What the page shows

The Rental market insights page shows official statistics about rents for every state and territory and for Australia as a whole. Each figure shows its source, its licence, the area it covers, the period it describes, when PlaceNest retrieved it and when the source was last verified.

For a state or territory, the only official rent series available is for its capital city — for example, choosing New South Wales shows figures for Sydney, not the whole state. The page says so beside every figure. Australia means the eight capital cities combined.

Important: These are official statistics, not PlaceNest marketplace data. They describe the rental market as a whole. They say nothing about any particular advertisement on PlaceNest, and PlaceNest does not use them to judge whether a rent is fair.

Different rent measures are not the same thing

CPI rents

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Consumer Price Index for rents. It tracks the rents paid by all renting households — existing leases as well as new ones — so it changes slowly and tends to lag advertised rents. It is an index, not a dollar amount.

Advertised (asking) rent and its growth

What advertisements ask for new leases, and how that changes. Only commercial providers publish these figures, and PlaceNest does not hold a licence to show them.

Rental vacancy rate

The share of rental homes vacant and available to rent. No government body publishes one; the published rates are commercial, and PlaceNest does not show one.

Rental bond statistics

The rent agreed in new leases, from bond lodgements held by state and territory authorities. Planned for some areas; not shown yet.

Census rent

The rent reported by every renting household on Census night, every five years. Planned; not shown yet.

Because these measure different things, PlaceNest never puts them on the same chart or combines them into one growth figure. A change in CPI rents is not a change in advertised rents.

Rental Market Trends on the search page

Under the map on the search page, Rental Market Trends shows the official figures for the capital city of the state or territory you searched. Searching all of Australia shows the national figures (the eight capital cities combined) — never one city presented as the whole country; choose a state or territory for its capital city's figures. These are official statistics for the area as a whole, not PlaceNest listing data.

• Rental vacancy rate and advertised rental growth show "Data not currently available" — PlaceNest has no licensed source for them.
• The rents-paid chart is the ABS CPI change over 12 months. It is a different measure from advertised rental growth and is labelled that way.
• The figures are never suburb-specific, and they describe the area as a whole — not any listing in your results.
• You can view 12 months or 3 years. A 5-year view is not offered because the ABS monthly series starts in July 2022.

Published and derived figures

• The index and the change over 12 months are shown exactly as the ABS publishes them.
• The change from the previous month, and the comparison between two months you choose, are calculated by PlaceNest from the published index of one area. They are labelled "Derived by PlaceNest" and show how they were calculated.
• If a figure for a month is missing, no comparison is shown — PlaceNest never fills gaps or estimates.

The long-run chart uses the ABS historical quarterly series, which ended with the September quarter 2025. Its index levels use a different reference from the current monthly index, so only its published annual changes are charted.

Why some figures say "Unavailable"

Licence required

The figure exists but only from a commercial provider, and PlaceNest has no licence to show it — for example advertised rents and vacancy rates.

No open data source

No openly licensed data was found — for example bond-based median rents for the ACT.

Planned — not sourced yet

Open data exists and is planned — for example bond-based rents for Queanbeyan and Googong, and the Census baseline.

Not published for this area

The publisher does not produce the figure for the area you chose.

Good to know: PlaceNest never calculates a vacancy rate from its own advertisements. The advertisements on PlaceNest are not a count of every rental home, so such a figure would be wrong.

How often the figures change

The ABS publishes monthly CPI figures about four to five weeks after the end of each month. The page shows when the next release is expected and whether the figures shown may be out of date.

ACT rent increases

In the ACT, the amount above which a rent increase may be considered excessive is linked to Canberra CPI rents (110% of its growth). The page mentions this as context only. Check the ACT Government's rent increase information or get independent advice for your situation.