Rentals along the Mornington Peninsula have become highly competitive.
Rents in the popular seaside area,just over an hour from Melbourne’s CBD,have skyrocketed over the past two years as people scrambled for a home close to the ocean during the worst of the coronavirus lockdowns.
In Mount Eliza alone,rents rose by 13.7 per cent over the year to December,to a median weekly rent of $850,Domain’s latest rent report revealed.
“I think particularly we’ve seen such a growth in rent and population in the Mornington Peninsula that some people are now looking for a quieter area that’s near to the coast[elsewhere],” Domain chief of research and economics Nicola Powell said.
People are compromising by moving further away from the city,to towns where they will have views of the ocean and a bigger home but may have further to travel back to the office.
“That’s one of the key trends we’ve seen – the commutable distance people are willing to take a couple of days a week back to the city will be much longer than those who do it five days a week,” Dr Powell said.
The biggest leap in rents in regional areas was in the Corangamite LGA,about a two-hour train ride from Melbourne. The area,which includes the coastal towns of Port Campbell,Peterborough and Timboon,saw weekly rents soar by 21.9 per cent,or $63 a week,to a median of $348.