There’s a version of Melbourne everyone falls in love with.
The morning coffee runs. The trams rattling through the city. The neighbourhoods that somehow make a big city feel like home.
And then there’s another version of Melbourne. The one that comes with a weekly price tag.
Whether it’s a small apartment close to the city or a family house further out, the cost of renting can look very different depending on where you choose to live.
But these differences didn’t appear overnight.
Using Victorian Government rental data from March 2000 to September 2025, this report explores how Melbourne’s rental market has changed, where prices differ most, and how much the type of home matters.
Five interactive charts. Twenty-five years of rental data. One city with very different price tags.
Melbourne’s rental market has changed considerably over the past 25 years. But did every part of the city experience the same changes?
Our first chart follows typical weekly rental prices across Melbourne’s eight regions, showing how rental trends have evolved over time.
Explore the chart: Hover over the lines to see rental prices in different quarters. Use the legend to focus on particular regions.
THE BIG PICTURE
Melbourne’s rental prices have generally increased over the long term, although the pace of change has varied across regions and periods.
The trend raises another question: even within the same city, how different can weekly rents be?
A small apartment might work for one person. A couple may need more space. A family might be searching for a house with several bedrooms.
To understand how property size shapes rental costs, the next chart compares different property types across Melbourne’s eight regions.
Explore the chart: Hover over the heatmap cells to see the median weekly rent for each property type and region. Compare the colours to identify more and less expensive combinations.
THE SPACE PREMIUM
Rental prices vary not only by location but also by property type. Larger homes can command substantially higher weekly rents, particularly in some inner and established suburban areas.
The heatmap makes one thing clear: deciding where to live is only half the calculation. Deciding what kind of home to rent matters too.
For many renters, the price of a particular suburb may have looked very different from what it does today.
This chart compares September 2019 and September 2025 rental figures for selected suburb groups with the largest absolute increases.
Explore the chart: Hover over the two endpoints to compare weekly rents in 2019 and 2025. Look at the distance between them to see the size of the increase.
SIX YEARS, A VERY DIFFERENT PRICE
For example, the Glen Waverley–Mulgrave suburb group reached approximately $695 per week in September 2025, an increase of around $195 per week compared with September 2019.
That’s approximately a 39% increase over six years.
This chart highlights selected suburb groups with large increases, not a representative sample of every suburb. The comparison describes changes in published rental medians, not changes in rent for the same individual households.
After seeing these differences, one question becomes personal: what happened in a neighbourhood you know?
So far, we’ve looked at Melbourne as a whole, compared its regions and explored changes in selected suburbs.
But what if you want to investigate a particular neighbourhood?
Our final chart lets you explore rental trends across suburb groups and property types over time.
Explore the chart: Choose a suburb from the dropdown, compare property types using the coloured lines, hover for exact weekly rents, and adjust the date range using the slider.