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‘Sad puppy score’ ranks Australia’s least pet-friendly suburbs

By Kyle Robbins
28 March 2023 | 11 minute read
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With pets often viewed as an extended member of the family, a new report has ranked Australia’s worst suburbs when it comes to accommodating tenants’ non-human relatives.

The report from SuburbTrends analysed rental listings across the country in the past three months, focusing their search on keywords such as “no pets” or ”no pets allowed”. From there, a “sad puppy score” was generated on a scale of one to five, with one point dished out for “any suburb with a rental price increase of 5 per cent or more in the last 12 months.”

Additional sad puppies were allocated for suburbs where vacancy rates are below 1.5 per cent, while any suburb with more than 10 per cent of rentals advertised as non-pet-friendly received an extra puppy, while two puppies were handed out for suburbs where 20-plus per cent of rentals weren’t pet friendly, and three puppies were given to regions where 30 per cent or more of available rentals advertise as “no pets allowed”.

Australia’s 10 least pet-friendly suburbs, according to the report are:

  1.   Oaklands Park, South Australia:

67 per cent “no pets,” 0.5 per cent vacancy rate, and a 13 per cent rent increase

  1.   Beresford, Western Australia:

65 per cent “no pets,” 1.3 per cent vacancy rate, and a six per cent rent increase

  1.   Nuriootpa, South Australia:

63 per cent “no pets,” 0.9 per cent vacancy rate, and a 19 per cent rent increase

  1.   Batemans Bay, NSW:

58 per cent “no pets,” 2 per cent vacancy rate, and a 15 per cent rent increase

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  1.   Glenelg, South Australia:

55 per cent “no pets,” 0.8 per cent vacancy rate, and a 15 per cent rent increase

  1.   Newton, South Australia:

55 per cent “no pets,” 0 per cent vacancy rate, and a 14 per cent rent increase

  1.   Newport, South Australia:

54 per cent “no pets,” 0.5 per cent vacancy rate, and a 12 per cent rent increase

  1.   Lithgow, NSW:

50 per cent “no pets,” 2.1 per cent vacancy rate, and a 12 per cent rent increase

  1.   Lambton, NSW:

48 per cent “no pets,” 0.7 per cent vacancy rate, and an 11 per cent rent increase

  1.   Semaphore Park, South Australia:

48 per cent “no pets,” a 1.4 per cent vacancy rate, and a 14 per cent rent increase

Suburbtrends founder, Kent Lardner, believes that the “study highlights the difficulties of renting with pets in Australia, particularly in state’s such as South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania.”

Notably, Victoria doesn’t feature in the ranking due to legislation introduced in March 2021, which prohibited landlords from including a “no pets clause” in their rental agreements, although they can still refuse a tenants’ request.

Recently, NSW’s newly elected premier, Chris Minns, promised to deliver laws requiring owners to respond to a tenants’ request to house a pet inside their rental property within 21 days, with failure to respond resulting in the requests automatic approval.

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