According to realestate.com.au, Avalon Beach now has 23 Airbnb listings for every 100 private rentals, the highest ratio of any suburb in Greater Sydney, while the city's median rent has climbed to a record $800 a week.
What the Data Actually Shows
The analysis, commissioned by removalist firm Fox Removals and based on Inside Airbnb figures from September 2026 cross-referenced against 2021 Census rental counts, covered 28,679 whole-property Airbnb listings across 850 suburbs in Greater Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Avalon Beach topped the Sydney list with 127 Airbnbs against 559 private rentals — a ratio of 23 per 100. Millers Point followed closely with 110 Airbnbs against 501 private rentals, a ratio of 22 per 100, according to realestate.com.au.
Manly presented a different picture entirely. It carried the largest raw number of Airbnbs at 442 listings, but because it also has 3,585 private rentals, its ratio sat at just 12 per 100 — roughly half the intensity of Avalon Beach despite more than triple the absolute Airbnb count. Greater Sydney as a whole averaged just under two Airbnb listings per 100 private rentals, meaning these hotspot suburbs sit at ten to twelve times the metro-wide average.
This matters because raw listing counts can mislead. A suburb with hundreds of Airbnbs but a deep rental pool absorbs that supply differently to a suburb where short-term listings make up a material share of the entire private rental stock. University of Sydney Professor Nicole Gurran, whose earlier modelling of short-term rental impacts fed into the broader debate, said any permanent rental unit converted to Airbnb "depletes the available vacancies" in that market.
For renters searching in beachside or heritage-dense pockets, this data offers a practical screening tool. A suburb posting a high Airbnb-to-rental ratio alongside a tight vacancy rate signals a market where competition for the remaining long-term stock is likely to be sharper than the city-wide rental figures suggest.
Why Supply, Not Just Demand, Is the Story
Sydney's median rent hitting $800 a week did not happen in isolation. The same reporting notes rents in some suburbs jumped significantly over the past quarter. Dr Gurran's joint study with the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute found high concentrations of short-term rental accommodation (STRA) drove up both rents and house prices.
Greater Sydney currently caps whole-property STRA hosting at 180 days a year, with voluntary registration required. Airbnb's own submission to the City of Sydney conceded enforcement, not the design of the rules, has been the weak point — a position Dr Gurran broadly supports, arguing councils "don't have the resources or the timely data needed to enforce these restrictions." She frames the fix as tighter caps on un-hosted, whole-dwelling listings specifically, rather than banning hosted arrangements where an owner remains resident.
There is a genuine economic trade-off buried in this data. Airbnb points to figures showing 73 per cent of Australian hosts use STRA earnings to help cover rising living costs — mortgages, bills, groceries. Retiree Bernadette Janson's Redfern granny flat, which she runs as STRA to supplement a modest superannuation balance, illustrates that income need directly. Her first month after costs returned just $1,000, with $5,000 expected in the following month — a reminder that STRA income is lumpy and far from guaranteed. Fox Removals founder Daniel Hassell noted that anyone weighing the switch "needs to look beyond the headline nightly rate and factor in vacant periods, additional costs and the work involved."
Suburbs with high Airbnb-to-rental ratios display concentrations of short-term rental activity relative to long-term rental stock, as the data analysis demonstrates.
That tension — between STRA as a cost-of-living lifeline for owners and a supply consideration for renters — is unlikely to resolve through market forces alone. It is a policy design question about where caps bite, not simply a question of whether STRA should exist.
Context: Where This Sits in the Housing Debate
Airbnb's own submission to Sydney Council argues the root cause of housing pressure is "chronic undersupply of housing, driven by planning constraints, heritage controls, construction costs and approval delays" — not short-term rental activity itself. Dr Gurran agrees more supply is ultimately required but argues the existing rental stock cannot be allowed to "drain away into the tourism market" while that broader supply problem remains unresolved.
For anyone assessing a Sydney suburb for a long-term rental search or an investment purchase, STRA concentration is now a data point worth checking alongside the usual fundamentals — vacancy rates, infrastructure pipelines and planning zoning. The APF encyclopedia's suburb research framework sets out how these variables fit together when assessing any Australian suburb before committing capital.
What It Means for Renters, Owners and Investors
Renters searching beachside northern suburbs such as Avalon Beach, or heritage pockets like Millers Point, should treat a high Airbnb concentration as a signal that the advertised vacancy rate may understate real competition for available stock. Applying earlier in a letting cycle and being realistic about rent growth in these specific pockets is a sensible response given reported rent movements in some Sydney suburbs.
For owners weighing a switch to short-term letting, the Redfern case study is instructive: STRA income builds gradually and carries real operating costs, vacancy risk and management workload that a flat weekly rent figure does not. Those comparing STRA yield against conventional long-term rental returns should model both scenarios conservatively, in the same way an investor would stress-test any suburb-level rental data before committing to a purchase.
The practical takeaway from this data set is simple: suburb-level STRA concentration is now a material, checkable variable in any Sydney rental or purchase decision, not a background curiosity.
Further reading
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy. Content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or property investment advice.
