The most expensive outback town in Australia, where rent costs the same as Point Piper and Toorak
For the princely rent of $1400 a week, where would you most like to live: Sydney’s boujie Paddington, its glorious Bondi Beach, its millionaires’ row Point Piper, Melbourne’s stately, blue-chip Toorak or Baynton?
Baynton. It’s a tiny town of 2.7 square kilometres and just over 4000 people in the Pilbara region of Western Australia where people pay the highest weekly rent in regional Australia – about the same as in many capital-city top spots.
And what would you get in Baynton for that $1400 a week, instead of views of Sydney Harbour or a lifestyle in one of Victoria’s most salubrious areas?
More like a large three or four-bedroom single-level house with dated furnishings, a patch of worn grass and thick blinds to draw against the harsh glare of the sun bouncing off the dust and shale of the dry, mineral-rich region.
“It’s just a regular mining town,” says Wendi Pobje of Pilbara Real Estate, after the latest Domain Rent Report for the last quarter revealed Baynton to be the priciest place in which to rent a home outside the cities.
“There’s lots of work here which attracts people, and Baynton is a newer area of Karratha with a lot of executive homes.
