Methodology

Data sources

Every figure on the site traces back to one of the primary datasets below. Each is sourced from a government or official publication and ingested through the apps/data pipeline. Specific publication months differ by state — see the Sources page for individual licence terms and links.

• ABS Census 2021 — Table G02 (Selected Medians and Averages), Suburbs and Localities (SAL) geography. Released August 2022. Source of suburb-level median household income.
• NSW Fair Trading / DCJ Rent and Sales Report — quarterly bond lodgement data. Current snapshot uses the Q1 2026 release.
• QLD Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA) Bond Statistics — quarterly bond lodgement data. Current snapshot uses the Q1 2026 release.
• VIC Homes Victoria (DFFH) Rental Report — quarterly bond lodgement data. Approximately a 6-month publication lag; current snapshot uses the most recent VIC release available at build time.
• ABS Consumer Price Index (CPI) — quarterly, used for cost-of-living index adjustments. Current snapshot uses the Q1 2026 release.
• ABS ASGS 2021 centroid layers — SAL and Postal Area (POA) centroid geometries published via the ABS ArcGIS FeatureServer. Used to build the postcode-to-suburb concordance.
• ATO income tax brackets, FY 2025-26 — published rates and thresholds, plus Medicare levy. Encoded in @nestledger/shared and used by the take-home pay calculator.

Each dataset is named together with its version or reference year so that any figure on the site can be traced back to a specific public release.

The affordability formula

The 30% rule — the standard used by the ABS, the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, and most state-level housing policy — states that a household is in rental stress if rent exceeds 30% of gross income. We invert this to answer the question "what income do you need?" Two equations:

All income figures are gross (pre-tax). Your actual take-home pay after income tax and Medicare levy will be lower, so the "salary needed" figure on each suburb page is the gross annual salary, not the net amount that lands in your bank account.

Worked example. The median rent for a 1-bedroom dwelling in Bondi (NSW) is approximately $850 per week. Applying the formula:

So a single person renting a 1-bedroom apartment in Bondi needs to earn at least $147,333 gross per year to stay below the rental stress threshold. The same formula applies to 2-bedroom (couple) and 3-bedroom (family) dwellings using the respective bedroom-type median. See Household types for how we assign bedroom counts to household categories.

Household types

We model three household types, each mapped to a bedroom count:

• Single — 1-bedroom dwelling
• Couple — 2-bedroom dwelling
• Family — 3-bedroom dwelling

Bond data is stratified by number of bedrooms, so we use the bedroom-specific median where it is published. Where a suburb has too few new-tenancy lodgements for a given bedroom type to produce a statistically reliable median (typically fewer than 10–15 lodgements in a quarter), the state authority does not publish that figure. In those cases we fall back to the all-dwellings median for that postcode or suburb. This fallback is noted on affected suburb pages.

Rental stress threshold

"Rental stress" means paying more than 30% of gross household income on rent. This is the threshold used by the ABS, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC), and state government housing programs.

On suburb pages, we display the rent-to-income ratio for the local median household income. A ratio above 30% means that the typical household in that suburb would be in rental stress if they rented at the current median. A ratio below 30% means the median rent is technically affordable for the median household — though "affordable by the 30% standard" is not the same as "easy to afford" or "approved for a lease." See What we don't claim for the caveats.

Take-home pay calculation

Suburb pages and the rent affordability calculator surface both a gross income figure (used by the 30% rule) and a take-home pay estimate (what actually lands in your bank account each week). The take-home figure is produced by the calcAfterTax function in @nestledger/shared.

The function applies the FY 2025-26 resident individual income tax brackets published by the ATO. The tax-free threshold sits at $18,200; the 16% bracket extends to $45,000; the 30% bracket extends to $135,000; the 37% bracket extends to $190,000; and the top marginal rate of 45% applies above $190,000. The Medicare levy of 2% is then applied to taxable income above the low-income threshold. The Low Income Tax Offset (LITO) is applied when the taxpayer's income falls within the eligible range.

The function takes a gross annual salary and returns the after-tax annual amount. We don't try to model HECS/HELP repayments, salary sacrificing, private health rebates, or other personal adjustments — the result is a base-case "PAYG resident with no offsets beyond LITO" estimate. Use it as a directional figure, not a precise pay-slip prediction.

For full precision and current brackets, see the ATO website or use the ATO's own income tax calculator.

Essentials baseline figures

On suburb pages we show a sample weekly budget that splits a household's spend into rent, groceries, transport, utilities, insurance, and "other". The non-rent categories — the essentials baseline — are anchored to typical Australian household spending patterns informed by the ABS Household Expenditure Survey and the ABS Selected Living Cost Indexes.

The baseline figures encoded in @nestledger/shared represent a single-person starting point and are scaled by household type (couple and family households receive higher multipliers reflecting larger shopping baskets and increased utility use). The starting baseline values are:

• Groceries — $180/week (single-person baseline)
• Transport — $55/week (public transport / fuel / running costs)
• Utilities — $55/week (electricity, gas, water, internet)
• Insurance — $45/week (contents, car, health combined)
• Other — $89/week (discretionary residual)

These figures are deliberately conservative national averages. Your actual essentials spend will vary based on lifestyle, location, and household composition. We surface them so the rent-affordability picture is grounded in a realistic full-budget context, not just a single rent line item.

Calculator cost estimates and the regional cost model. In the cost-of-living calculator, rent is the suburb's real median drawn directly from state bond authority records. Non-rent costs (groceries, transport, utilities, insurance, other) start from the national weekly baseline above, scaled by household size and by a regional cost index: capital cities are indexed higher and regional areas lower than the national baseline — for example Sydney ~1.15× and regional NSW ~0.95× the national baseline. These are editable planning estimates, not measured suburb-level spending data, and every row can be adjusted in the calculator to reflect your own circumstances.

What we don't claim

This list exists so there is no ambiguity about the limits of the data:

• "Affordable" does not mean "you will be approved for a lease." Landlords consider income, rental history, employment stability, and other factors. A suburb being below the 30% threshold on your income says nothing about whether a landlord will rent to you.
• This site is a data research tool, not personal financial advice. Nothing here should be read as a recommendation to rent, buy, move, or commit to any particular financial decision. Consult a financial adviser for personal guidance.
• Past rents are not a prediction of future rents. Trend charts show historical data. Rent can fall as well as rise, and local market conditions can change faster than a quarterly publication cycle.
• "Median" hides variance. A suburb with a $600/wk median 1-bedroom rent has plenty of $450/wk and $800/wk listings. The median is the midpoint, not the floor. You may well find cheaper options within the same postcode.
• The 30% rule is a policy heuristic, not a law of nature. It is a widely-used threshold for identifying housing stress at a population level. Individual circumstances — no dependants, low discretionary spending, shared housing — may mean a ratio above 30% is manageable. The threshold exists to make comparisons tractable, not to define whether your personal budget works.
• No editorial opinions on suburbs. We do not rate, rank, or describe suburbs as "good," "bad," "up-and-coming," or otherwise. Every suburb page is generated from the same data pipeline using the same rules. The text you see is a description of the numbers, not a human review of the place.
• No buy / rent / move recommendations. The site does not recommend whether to buy property, sign a lease, or relocate. Those are personal decisions involving information we don't have (your career, family, health, financial position, risk tolerance). We surface affordability inputs; you decide what to do with them.
• No affiliate fees, no kickbacks, no sponsored placements. We are not paid by real estate agents, property platforms, lenders, or any third party to promote particular suburbs, dwellings, or services. The site is supported by display advertising only, and ad placements have no influence on which suburbs are surfaced or how their figures are calculated.
• We do not store user input. The rent affordability calculator runs entirely in your browser. Salary figures, household preferences, and any other inputs you enter are not transmitted to our servers and are not retained after you close the page.