By Michael Burt
The average rental price across the Bellingen Shire decreased by 15 per cent from $600 per week to $510, according to Domain’s latest quarterly rent report.
The surprising result bucks the trend of rents increasing in all north coast shires by up to 14.5% in 2025 and contradicts anecdotal evidence and the results of a recent Housing Matters Action Group (HMAG) survey.
Domain senior economist Joel Bowman said the Domain rent reports primarily track the median asking rent for houses and units listed on Domain.com.au, not necessarily the final settled price.
“The result for the Bellingen shire is certainly an outlier. There can be more volatility in the results from smaller markets like Bellingen because the sample size is small,” Mr Bowman said.
“The figures do not include quality or size of the rental. There may have been more larger homes available for rent in 2024.”
Mr Bowman said upward pressure in rents in the Coffs Coast region has been less than that in Northern Rivers region.
“House rents were virtually unchanged in the broader Coffs Harbour region. I think one of the reasons for that is affordability constraints as rent has significantly increased over the past five years.”
“Peoples incomes have just not kept pace with the run up in rents. It is certainly not due to increased supply of housing.”
The Bellingen shire has experienced a 34.2% increase in average rental prices over the past five years, while the Coffs Harbour City Council shire had a 37.5% increase.
“While reports of a drop in advertised rents are welcome, they don’t reflect what many local residents are actually experiencing,” said HMAG coordinator Rose West.
“Our December 2025 housing needs mapping survey, with more than 180 responses from across the Bellingen Shire, shows that affordability and housing insecurity remain major pressures – particularly for working families and long-term residents.”
Rose said survey respondents highlighted that housing stress affects their ability to keep working locally.
“Older residents also spoke about deep uncertainty, with one person sharing, ‘I’ve lived here most of my life – now I don’t know where I’ll end up.’ What we’re seeing aligns with the idea that rent growth is slowing because households have reached their limit, not because supply has meaningfully improved.”
“That’s why we’re focused on long-term, place-based solutions – including the Waterfall Way Community Land Trust, which is designed to keep homes permanently affordable for local working people, and targeted developments such as Watson Place, which provides 23 affordable homes for women over 55 at risk of homelessness.”
Vacancy rates remain at an all-time low of 0.9% across regional NSW with the Coffs Coast region recording a rate of 0.7% in 2025. The Port Macquarie-Hastings Shire had the lowest rate of 0.4%.
“A balanced rental market has a vacancy rate of 2.5%, and the North Coast region is well below that,” Mr Bowman said.
Mr Bowman said the overall NSW regional market had outpaced Sydney in annual rent growth.
“Rents in many parts of regional NSW are booming, with population spillover, a bumper agricultural season and ‘rentvestors’ chasing cheaper buys, colliding with a housing drought.”
The Byron shire remains the most expensive place to rent in NSW after experiencing a 10.5% increase in average weekly rent to $1050. The Tweed shire comes in second followed by the Kiama shire on the south coast and Ballina shire.
It is now more expensive to rent in the Byron and Tweed shires than the broader Sydney market, which had an average advertised rent of $800 per week.
“There are more expensive pockets in Sydney of course, like Dover Heights where the average is $3000.”
The Richmond Valley Shire, which includes Casino, had the highest increase of 14.5% in 2025 for the north coast region.