reya O'Connell has a full-time job and her own small business, yet she can't find a place to live in Geelong's overwhelmed rental market.

Three weeks ago, Ms O'Connell was told she had until the end of February to move out of her Mount Duneed home because her landlords would be moving into the property.

Since then she has unsuccessfully applied for more than a dozen rentals, and had two private applications rejected after competing tenants offered to pay higher rent to secure the homes.

Geelong's record rental unaffordability has left Ms O'Connell facing a "last resort" of moving in with her partner of one year, despite his current home having barely enough room for the couple, a child and two dogs.

"It's sort of resorting to a plan that we weren't going to yet, because there's no other option," Ms O'Connell said. "We were going to wait until we could get something bigger."

Ms O'Connell said renters such as herself were being left "no other choice" but to make difficult decisions, such as squeezing into undersized homes or offering to pay above advertised rental prices – despite those prices already sitting at record levels.

"It's just extremely overwhelming and hard to find one, especially within budget," she said.

"I can't offer more because it will go into half my wage then. So it's sort of a lose-lose, and there's no way around it."

Ms O'Connell does not blame her landlords for her situation, as they had given her some warning of their plans to move back in, and they were likely facing the pinch of increasing interest rates and costs of living.

"It's not on them, it's just a situation that sucks all round," she said.

There's a house just a couple of streets down from Freya, built on the ever-expanding cusp of the Armstrong Creek growth area, which embodies the city's stark rental crisis.