By Corey Everitt
Pakenham has again entered the top 25 of Victoria suburbs experiencing the worst rental pain, according to a new report.
Suburbtrends published their ‘Rental Pain Index’ report for June 2024 that placed Pakenham as the 12th suburb for rental pain with an indexed score of 96.
The score is derived from three factors of vacancy rate, average rate increase over the previous year and average percentage of income going to rent.
Pakenham measured a vacancy rate of 0.74 per cent – well below the Victorian average which stands at 1.52 per cent.
There has been a 15 per cent increase in the cost of renting for Pakenham tenants over the past 12 months. Over a third of income is going to pay rent, at an overall average of 35 per cent.
This stands well above the state-wide average, with 28 per cent of income servicing rent across Victoria – a 12 per cent increase.
Pakenham has re-entered the top list after dropping from Suburbtrends’ top 25 in their April report.
In February this year, it reached sixth in Victoria in the rental pain index. While in July last year, Pakenham broke into the worst in the country reaching 20th in top rental pain and was the only Victorian suburb to reach the worst 25 in the nation.
This latest data arrives with a new Homes Victoria report that showed the number of actively occupied rental properties had declined across Victoria by 2.3 per cent in the year to March 2024.
Cardinia matched the trend with active rental bonds dropping by 2.7 per cent.
