Where to find Townsville’s cheapest rents

Cheap rental hotspots have been revealed across the Townsville region as the Queensland rental crisis continues to worsen, driven by high demand and low supply.

The top four suburbs for affordable house rents are all outside the Townsville city limits, according to the latest data from PropTrack.

Ingham came in at number one, on the back of a weekly median rent of $320.

Richmond Hill was second with an average rent of $325 per week, followed by Charters Towers City ($335) and Ayr ($340).

In fifth place was Vincent, the first Townsville suburb to make the list, with a median weekly rent of $380.

Rounding out the top 10 were Gulliver ($390), Heatley, Pimlico and Rasmussen ($400) and Condon ($410).

But while the rents were cheap, houses were hard to come by with just 14 properties listed for rent within the top five suburbs on realestate.com.au on Friday and just 32 across all of the top 10 suburbs.

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This cottage at 37 Miner St, Charters Towers City, is for lease for $290 per week. Picture: realestate.com.au

In the unit market, Ingham was once again the cheapest with a median weekly rent of $250.

Next up was Hyde Park ($300), followed by Currajong ($300), Aitkenvale ($310) and Hermit Park ($320).

There were just 23 units listed for rent on realestate.com.au on Friday across these suburbs.

PropTrack’s latest Market Insight Report showed Queensland’s rental vacancy rate hit its lowest level ever in August, dropping below 1 per cent.

In Townsville numbers were even direr with the vacancy rate sitting at 0.9 per cent, down 0.01 percentage points in the past three months and down 0.05 percentage points since September 2022.

The vacancy rate was 0.8 per cent in Brisbane, 0.6 per cent in Cairns and 0.97 per cent on the Gold Coast.

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A two-bedroom townhouse at 6/4 Goldring St, Hermit Park, is for lease for $330 per week. Picture: realestate.com.au

PropTrack data showed the overall median rent in Townsville shot up 10.5 per cent in the year to August to sit at $420 per week.

The median house rent rose 7.1 per cent to $450 and the median unit rent increased 9.4 per cent to $350 in the same time.

Townsville-based property management leader, Tamara Weight, of Harcourts Kingsberry, said rents were still rising.

“Most of the big jumps have happened, where we may have seen increases of $100 per week, but we are still seeing regular increases,” she said.

Ms Weight said the rise in rents was largely due to the tight rental market.

“Our vacancy rate is the lowest we’ve ever seen it,” she said.

“We are still seeing a high demand for rental properties, in particular the ones that are more affordable.

“We might have 20 applications on any one of those properties.

“The homes that are sitting on the market a bit more are the expensive properties, the ones that are $600 or more per week.

“But even properties in the $500s are renting quickly.”

Ms Weight said the Townsville rental market was still gearing up for its busiest period in December and January, but it wasn’t all bad news for tenants.

“The market will be more competitive but as people move away there is new stock becoming available around that time as well,” she said.

And the news of more than 500 Australian soldiers being reallocated to Townsville by 2025, on top of already strong population growth, was a potential concern for the local property market, Ms Weight said.

“I know defence does try to house a lot of members and their families within their own (Defence Housing Australia) properties,” she said.

“But if they are having to look within the normal rental market, it will add pressure and potentially drive prices up even further.”

Article source: Queensland Property Investor