The Rumy Rent Tracker

1. The median Melbourne room was $317 a week.

Rents varied a lot by area. The median room in the uni belts was $280 a week, and in the CBD and fringe it was $350.

2. Rooms with bills included cost no more.

59% of rooms advertised bills included, and their median rent ($315/wk) was slightly lower than for rooms where bills were extra ($320/wk). That doesn't make bills free, because the two groups of rooms aren't otherwise identical. It does mean a bills-included room wasn't priced at a premium.

3. Two-thirds of rooms were available immediately.

67% of room listings were marked "available now." The rest had a move-in date in the future. A room marked available now might be empty or might be about to be vacated, so this isn't a vacancy rate. It does show that most advertised rooms could be moved into straight away.

4. August had the most upcoming move-ins.

Of rooms with a future availability date, 373 were for August 2026, 4.6 times the September figure. Rooms are mostly listed a few weeks ahead, so the nearest month will usually be the largest. August is also when semester two starts, and later editions will show how much of the gap is seasonal.

5. Student accommodation rooms were cheaper than share house rooms.

Rooms in purpose-built student accommodation had a median of $300/wk versus $320/wk in regular share houses.

6. Flemington had the lowest median of the larger markets.

Median room rent of $220/wk, $97 under the city median, across 28 listings. See the Flemington page for the local figures.

Median room rent by cluster

Rooms becoming available, by month

Of rooms advertising a future availability date, 373 were for August, 4.6 times the September figure.

Suburb leaderboards (10+ rooms observed)

All 73 suburbs

Median, range, bills and availability cells are suppressed where fewer than 5 rooms were observed, because a sample that small isn't reliable. Every suburb links to its own page.

How rents moved since last edition

Time-to-fill by suburb

Trust who you live with.

If you're looking: most advertised rooms could be moved into straight away, and bills-included rooms weren't priced any higher, so it's worth asking for bills to be included. If budget matters most, Flemington had the lowest median of the larger markets.

If you're listing: two in three advertised rooms were available immediately, so seekers had plenty to choose from, and including bills didn't lift the asking rent. What an ad can still do is show who lives in the house, and that's what Rumy is built for.