Orange has been listed as one of 54 regional centres in Australia where rents are predicted to rise by $5000 this year with Propertyology Head of Research, Simon Pressley, saying he's "genuinely concerned a rent crisis may cause widespread civil unrest" across Australia.

Orange property manager Peter Mitchell, from Peter Mitchell Property Management, agreed there is a limited supply for demand but he took a different view, believing Orange's market would slow down this year.

"I think prices will probably start to slow down a bit, there seems to be a few more [rental] houses coming on. Just after Christmas there was 60 odd, now [online] there's 80," he said.

"It might just slow down a little bit."

"The other thing, I think that will continue to around August when the Reserve Bank puts interest rates up a bit and that will slow the sales process down and probably the rental process as well."

Mr Mitchell has around 300 properties on his books but just one up for rent at the moment. He said he had "five or six" people lining up to the look the east Orange unit, and had also completed several video links.

"I don't have a lot of turnover at the moment. One comes up, you rent it, we don't have multiple properties in any given price bracket. It just seems to be dribs and drabs coming on because people are staying put," he said.

He agreed that was part and parcel of the current tight rental situation but also felt some agents could shoulder some of the blame for rent hikes.

"You've got younger property managers who think it's cool to put as much on a property as you possible can and some people can pay it and some people will walk away," he said.

"People are saying that Orange people can't afford Orange anymore, it's getting to dear but I think if the agents managed their owners better, the prices wouldn't be as dear," he said.

Mr Pressley also said pressure on the rental market was "a direct result of five consecutive years of grossly insufficient extra supply being added to Australia's rental pool".

He said for perspective, Australia's population increased by 1.5 million during the last five years.

"So one would expect a significant increase in the total volume of dwellings advertised for rent over that period. Alas, it reduced from 86,683 in December 2016 to a piddly 57,558 in December 2021," he said.

"The combination of the growing number of wannabe tenants living in makeshift accommodation, pressure on tenant's household budgets from rising rents, and landlords being squeezed at every corner is toxic cocktail."

One Agency has around 200 rental properties on its books, all of which are leased with agent Ash Brown saying he agreed with Mr Pressley's stance that 'mum and dad' investors should be given more incentive to get into the market by government, not less.

He also agreed rent prices would rise as demand outstripped supply.

"We had one recently were 50 people applied and you could have chosen from 45 of them," he said adding some tenants were offering six months' rent in advance while others had offered more per week to secure a property.

According to Mr Pressley's data, only 15 per cent of Australia's 2.8 million rental dwellings are government owned. The other 85 percent are privately-funded by 2.1 million property investors.

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