Melton has been dubbed the most affordable Melbourne metropolitan municipality.
Yet 50 per cent of people on Centrelink benefits are unable to afford to live there, according to a Department of Health and Human Services report.
The department defines “affordable” as paying no more than a third of the renter’s net income.
The rental report, for the March quarter, found 51.7 per cent of houses in Melton were affordable to households relying solely on Centrelink income.
Melton was followed by Wyndham (50.6 per cent), Cardinia (40.6 per cent), Nillumbik (31.2 per cent) and Brimbank (29 per cent). Melton continued to be an affordable-rent municipality for both two-bedroom flats ($240 a week) and three-bedroom houses ($275).
“The proportion of all new lettings that were affordable across the state decreased to 17.9 per cent in the March quarter, compared with 22.2 per cent in the December quarter, 2014,” the report states. “It is a slight increase on the March quarter, 2014 (17.8 per cent).”
The report says metropolitan Melbourne continues to register very low levels of rental affordability. “The proportion of affordable new letting in March, 2015, was 8.3 per cent,” it says.
The report found the proportion of affordable houses in regional Victoria had decreased slightly to 59.1 per cent, compared with 62.2 per cent in the December quarter. However, the proportion is higher than in the March quarter, 2014 (56.2 per cent).”
More than 65 per cent of Moorabool flats and houses were affordable in the last quarter, according to the report. But some municipalities in regional Victoria, such as Loddon and West Wimmera, attained 100 per cent affordability. The report also compared the number of active bonds held by tenants in each municipality during the past five years.
In the five years to March, 2015, the highest increases in active bonds have been in municipalities on the outer fringes of Melbourne – in Nillumbik (87.1 per cent), Melton (73.4), Wyndham (71), Cardinia (65.6), Hume (64.7) and Whittlesea (63.4).
Meanwhile, in regional Victoria, Moorabool (54.1 per cent), Pyrenees (50), Mitchell (45), Baw Baw (42.5) and Buloke (37.7) recorded the highest increases in active bonds held by tenants.
