The latest research into rental affordability across Australia shows that Hobart is still the least affordable capital city to rent, with even moderate-income working households paying 30 per cent of their income to rent a home.

The Rental Affordability Index (RAI) is a price index for housing rental markets. It is an easy to understand indicator of rental affordability relative to household incomes and is applied to geographic areas across Australia. National Shelter, Community Sector Banking, SGS and Brotherhood of St Laurence release the RAI since 2015.

This release focuses on vulnerable demographics, including single mothers and single males. It has been found that there are 110,000 single parent, low-income households nationwide and out of over 90,000 of these households, 82% involve single mothers who are living in rental stress. Majority of these women earn $41,600 per annum or less, meaning they are paying between 40% - 70% of their income on rent.

There are approximately 244,000 low income, single-person households experiencing rental stress in Australia - 57 per cent of people in this household profile are single men. More than half of single men renting earn less than $36,400 per annum meaning in any capital city they would be paying between 34 per cent and 68 per cent of their income on rent causing rental stress.