Sydney’s median weekly rent is now sitting at $787, with Perth at $713 and Brisbane not far behind at $678.

Based on purchasing with a 20 per cent deposit and a 30-year mortgage, some suburbs in our major cities are more affordable for buyers than renters.

Cotality – formerly Corelogic – crunched the numbers for Ubank.

While housing remains unaffordable for many, you can see the breakdown of which suburbs meet this criteria in the table below.

In Sydney, units in Eastlakes, Telopea, Greystanes, and Pennant Hills are all affordable for less than the median weekly rent.

In this scheme, houses were available on the outskirts of Sydney, in Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains and San Remo on the Central Coast.

“What’s changing is that rents have gone up and they’ve stayed up. Meanwhile, mortgage rates are coming down,” Cotality head of research Eliza Owen said.

“And that means the payment on a mortgage might actually start to look closer to or even cheaper than rent in some markets.”

In Melbourne, the price of homes has risen by less than the national average in recent years.

“While the national home value has risen about 40 per cent since COVID, Melbourne is only up about 11 per cent,” Owen said.

“And that means that, while rents have risen, people could actually find mortgage serviceability quite feasible in many parts of the city.”

Many are now choosing to rent where they want to live, and invest in a property elsewhere.

“We’re actually seeing more customers make inquiries about that as an option,” UBank’s head of direct lending Annie Harrison said.

“It’s not for everybody, mind you, but it is for some customers who want to maintain that lifestyle, who’ve had really good savings behaviours but want to get a foot into the property ladder.”

And with more interest rate cuts predicted this year, Owen said Cotatlity expects mortgage serviceability to improve even if property prices keep rising over the course of the year.