August 2026 · Issue #3
Advertised rents are up more than 50% since 2019
Cotality has national advertised rents more than 50% higher than at the end of 2019 — over $12,500 a year added to the cost of renting for a typical tenant, with no real sign of the pressure easing.
The headline figure is stark enough on its own. Since the end of 2019, national advertised rents have risen more than 50%. For a typical tenant that is over $12,500 a year in additional cost — not over the whole period, but every year.
The most recent twelve months have not brought relief. Rents grew 5.9% in the year to July, close to double wage growth over the same period, while vacancy rates stayed at historic lows. When supply is that tight, rent increases do not need a reason.
The rental squeeze
| Advertised rents since end-2019 | more than +50% |
| Added annual cost, typical tenant | over $12,500 |
| Rent growth, year to July | +5.9% |
| Vacancy rates | historic lows |
I should be straight about the limits of this one. The full Cotality analysis sits behind a subscription, so the detailed forward forecast was not available to me. What is publicly reported is the trend and the framing — that rental pain is expected to continue. If you need the forecast detail for a decision, go to Cotality directly rather than relying on a summary of a summary.
The Redlands read
The Redlands version of this story
Rising rents and falling values sound contradictory until you remember they are driven by different things. Values respond to what buyers can borrow. Rents respond to whether there is anywhere to live. Right now borrowing capacity is constrained and rental supply is short, so the two move apart.
For local owners with an investment property, yields have improved — but I would not oversell that. A yield improves either because the rent went up or because the value went down, and this year it has been a bit of both. Better income on an asset that has stopped growing is not the same as being better off. It is worth reviewing your rent against the current market, and worth being clear-eyed about why the percentage looks healthier.
For tenants in the Redlands hoping to buy, the maths is genuinely brutal: rent is rising faster than wages at the same time as borrowing capacity has fallen about 7%. Saving a deposit while the cost of standing still keeps climbing is the hardest version of this problem, and it is worth being honest that it is not a motivation issue.
And there is a second-order effect worth watching. Sustained rental pressure is part of what keeps the Thornlands townhouse market as tight as it is — investors and downsizers are chasing the same limited stock, for different reasons.
Own a rental in the Redlands? I’ll give you both numbers — what it’s worth, and what it should be renting for.
What’s mine worth?
Greg Leigh — local Redlands specialist, Queensland Sotheby’s International Realty. Published 12 August 2026.
Sources: Cotality national rental data, reported by MacroBusiness (12 August 2026), via Real Estate Weekly. Note: the full article is subscriber-only; only the publicly available summary was used.