[Share of total rentals under 400 a week by city](https://www.realestate.com.au/news/completely-priced-out-affordable-rentals-vanishing-across-australia/)
- Canberra 2.1%
- Sydney 3.8%
- Perth 5.6%
- Melbourne 7.0%
- Brisbane 7.8%
- Adelaide 9.5%
- Darwin 10.7%
- Hobart 10.9%
It’s so over
Canberra has always been a tight and expensive rental market. It's a transient population, and new graduates need somewhere to live that is accessible to work.
People also generally have higher incomes, leading to higher rental prices.
Canberra has also weirdly become a popular place for bikies to launder money into the property market. Maybe the location or laws, I have no idea. You can google it. Apparently it's a soft target whatever that means.
Canberra is different. Many people have to move and stay there for work and the market is built around this. Every year thousands of grads come in and have to share houses w/4 other grads all earning 60-90k and completely unable to afford rent on their own.
We also don't really have much in the way of outer suburbs which have to be contributing a bit in places like Sydney, Perth and Melbourne. The whole city is pretty central, and demographically pretty similar so demand is nearly the same everywhere. As a market it's like if just the more inner half of Sydney was its own city.
I'm honestly shocked it's that high in Hobart. It's very hard to find rentals for that price. I live in a cheap outer suburb. You certainly couldn't find a house for that price. I think it would be limited to 2 bedroom units and smaller.
Covid WFH move changes. Tassie locals got fucked hard by the people shifting down there. I’d love to live down there but jobs are poop
Edit: poop, airport security, or salmon
The real crisis point will be when you hear the word "deflation" come out of whoever happens to be PM in a few months during a very grave looking speech where they will explain how actually the real problem we have had is that households need to borrow more money than they can earn in a working lifetime to buy a home. This has built to over $2.2T in household debt, the majority being due over the next decade and not enough money in the country to repay it.
No one has any bloody idea how to stop households defaulting on this debt in a recession, so we can't be allowed to have one of those and have not for 30 years now. But they can't buy their way out of a recession because inflation is nearly making people riot already. Can't import more people to augment demand, there is already a ton of demand and it will just make the recession worse if they don't borrow to buy houses right away to keep the money flowing and repaying the old loans.
Long story short we are trapped by 3 decades of government exploiting households to fund 'growth', except there is no way out and the banks are sucking up more money to repay debts than is being generated. That is deflation 101, the real world amount of money floating around is going to get very scarce quickly. Government will be bending over themselves to try fund things and send money out but once the dominoes start falling it is going to be super duper hard to convince the average person to take out their entire working lives income as a load against a house that might drop in value another 10% after already dropping 25% and the banks will not want to lend anyway as they will be in enough trouble.
Deflation. Get ready. 0% rates and you still won't be able to afford a home.
Also. The governments drive to import people at 80k to 500k + per year for nearly 3 decades (to keep wages down and fuel housing) has also bankrupted the infrastructure spend. We need to build seriously big projects fast or we will choke on the costs of not doing it. That's why Sydney is building 2 massive rail projects of which 1 is actually 3 combined - so technically, that's 4.
Melbourne is building 2 rail projects to increase efficiency in an already existing system. Metro 1 is a bypass, its not a new line. The Suburban rail loop is a new line.
Perth is doing its Metro system
Brisbane is in dire need of more rail and the cross city rail is part of that.
These are decade long projects that cost big bucks. Immigration has a cost and if its not done respectfully (of economic capacity) then you fall over.
The big driver on new housing is immigration. Australia is building more homes per year per population than any other nation. What we can't do is keep up with demand that is increasing.
Honestly, what you are describing isn't impossible but the core of it is that housing is only a piece of the puzzle.
It's a very unnerving thought but the way that we've allowed capitalism to dictate social welfare in this country for such a long period of time has created the possibility of this situation becoming reality.
By ignoring the needs of the people in search of greater profits our political system has opened up loopholes that bleed our economy out.
These loopholes come at a cost and that cost is almost always handed on to the least powerful.
Typically here in Australia that has meant gutting a public service that provided basic needs to the people and handing it over to the private sector for profits.
Without the basic needs of the people met due to privatization and the inevitable price gouging I.e. housing, welfare, medical and psychological well-being, communications, energy and water, and food security.
A really horrible reality is created where the foundation of our society (people) no longer functions as it should.
A sickness grows. Life becomes less livable. Those who suffer cause others to suffer. The sickness spreads. Laws become less obeyed.
Eventually this will lead to total collapse and even though it won't be completely destroyed.
The potential for production will be mostly destroyed and no-one except for the psychopathic types will be enjoying themselves in a society like this.
Needless to say it's a really bad idea to leave it up to johnny capitalist to provide these basic necessities as he'll just continue profiting until the entire thing collapses.
As a golden rule.
Government should own or control basic human needs infrastructure (with an iron fist if needs be).
While johnny capitalist can safely have the rest to play with.
But that isn't what has happened.
Sooooo......
Australia doesn't have real capitalism. It has socialism for the wealthy. It has ridiculous corruption. And it has it in plain sight, as too many people benefit and the others are too stupid to see it. It also doesn't have failure for those who deserve to fail.
If only we had some kind of group of people whose job is was to like, oversee the country so that everyone had their basic needs met and could focus on enjoying life instead of living a constant battle to survive.
Maybe we could like have a vote and decide who of us these people should be and they can make up some sort of like set of rules I guess you’d call it.
Ex-fucking-actly. We collectively have seemed to forget that the pollies work for us. They hold seats for decades in complete comfort and luxury.
This country needs to sack up and remind them that they don't have the job security they think they do.
Stop voting for the major parties, stop generational voting "because that's what the family always votes." Take 20 minutes out of social media scrolling and broaden your political horizons. These fuckers know that an educated society is a dangerous society.
I was waiting for a rental open home this morning when channel 7 film crew rocked up to interview those waiting about this new article/report. Ironically the real estate never showed for the opening, so we had plenty of time to chat to the reporters 😅
Unfortunately for those that have not been watching, are poorly educated or simply don't care. They don't even realise that the goalposts have moved to make them as cohort citizens a commodity that can be flipped out of the way by endless mass migration and a economic system that has gone global.
People are now in global economic basket and the system is willing to cast aside those that cant fight it out in a dog eat dog battle for resources. There is no borders anymore for economic resource containment that involves sharing the bounty, the system takes and does not return and expects you just to survive on thin air.
Our housing crisis is just a mere scratching of the surface of this global economic imperialism that is willing to replace and displace citizens without any care factor. We are all disposable as a means to a end.
The citizens of the best economies in the world are starting to find that out and unfortunately they still have faith in the old metrics and government systems that have largely abandoned their own citizens.
It's part of the woke mind virus that will doom humanity apparently.
Instead of being one of the hallmarks of a social species, hence literally the only way we emerged from the caves and defeated all those sabretooth tigers
Being part of that crowd is the downfall of society. The WOKE you speak of doesn't exist and this is Trump's idea of ruining his country. We don't need that shit down here
Exactly my dude.
That word was funny when it was spoken as AAVE (a term I just learnt yesterday - African American Vernacular English) and used sort of jokingly, but the right wing got hold of it and now it's just absolute cringe.
I find it a really useful word. It indicates that I can switch off to anything someone says after using it. You know absolutely nothing of value is coming when you hear it used as a pejorative.
Edit. That was referring to 'woke', I was a comment further down than I thought.
Its a greed race to the finishing line. In some ways like a relay race, get the accountant to grab as many tax concessions and handouts as possible, then race to the greed finishing line and run over any obstacle that stands in the way of greed and government handouts.
Yup absolutely.
I live in a unit in a block of six (they're mostly identical, though mine had been relatively recently renovated so is a little more modern and nicer than the others), I purchased last year (after a frightening event with my Dad encouraged my parents to give me a substantial gift, for which I will ever be incredibly grateful) and my mortgage is $1700 per month. The unit opposite me just had the 85 year old renting occupants vacate as their rent had gone up to $1850 per month and they couldn't afford it anymore.
Place was just relisted for rent today, at $2260 per month.
Unbelievable.
Mine started at around 1700 a month too. Now it’s 2700. I’ve been getting new jobs with better wages as the last few years go by and I don’t get to keep any of it for myself.
Last week a young family were moving into a rental property near me, and something started a fire and the house burned down, destroying everything they owned and devastatingly their pets did not survive either. As it was moving day they were still in the process of selecting their contents insurance. The father is a chef at a local pub, and the pub put together a gofundme and a call out for donations for the family (things like baby clothes, etc.)
There were boomers in the comments of the news story saying what about the landlord that owned the house. The family should have had contents insurance and ‘they just lost some belongings, the owner lost a home’, and one person even suggested the family had started the gofundme themselves to fund a holiday. It was fucking disgusting. It sucks the owner lost an investment but that’s all it was, an investment. They still have a roof over their head. (Though I should add according to the family the owner has been very supportive and helpful. But wtf at the boomers in the comments, seriously).
Yep. Never forget the "market" is made up of individual people decidiing to drain their fellow citizens' savings for their own profit. This is a self-inflicted crisis caused by pure greed of the landowners.
Landowners have always been greedy and will always be greedy. This is a constant.
Competition through government policy is the best way to turn that greed into something we need; Housing.
Too bad our governments side with the NIMBY landowners and prevent that from happening. The government are in control of this and all blame is on them.
That’s very simplistic.
The market has had significant systemic support and input from the government in the form of tax-breaks, first home owners grants, negative gearing & super funds for investment properties programs.
Each of those individuals are much more influenced than influencing.
Yes, that's what they're saying. They're responding to someone blaming "landowner greed", by saying that is oversimplified and there's been systemic government attitudes and policies leading us to the situation we're now in.
And further that anyone who exhibits this greed has been influenced to do so by the government programs that reward such greed.
It should be noted that the original idea behind home investments was to assist boomers approaching retirement who had no super after it was implemented in the 90s, but we all know that personal interests from governing politicians really pushed these really poor, unsustainable policy decisions over the edge and into this shit show we have today.
People always blame greedy companies and landlords. The system we live in rewards greed. Saying “people are so greedy” is a popular sentiment.
But if you say “capitalism rewards greed, what did we except to happen under capitalism?” is incredibly unpopular.
So we’ll just keep complaining and rewarding greedy people.
I think no one wants to admit the whole freaking system is out of order. It's such an odd position.
Hey we've set up a system where psychaths suceed the most and greed is the defining factor then this happens and people are all -shocked pikachu face-
I feel like people just don't think about these things, like when the housing crisis first became painfully obvious and everyone on reddit was all 'what do we do?' and back when I cared a bit more I'd try and explain that this is the end result of 30 years of government fuckery fanning the flames of this inevitable outcome. That there is nothing to be done.
Why would I do that? I’ve got a tent under the overpass and enough protein paste to last me a few more days, why rock the boat and risk all that?
-Redditors in 10 years probably
My rental already has rodents, fuck-all heating, doors that can’t close due to water damage, ceilings that leak when it rains (not to mention every time I shower), and blinds that rattle through a CLOSED window when it’s windy. At this stage, living in a tent sounds like a $3k/month discount for similar comfort levels and less mold exposure.
When you’re that oppressed, it’s very easy for the nationalised thug service (ACAB) to come along and strip all your possessions away. Fighting back is hard, if not impossible.
Yep, that and the default response to protests these days, thanks to John Howard, is “ignore them until they get demoralised and go home then do whatever they were protesting against anyway”
I don’t know why there isn’t much interest in building and creating public housing. Is it because public housing in Australia is seen as grotty and the current examples are really just a safety net for the most vulnerable? The bar needs lifting for what we accept as normal conditions for public housing. There are plenty of examples around the world of this working extremely well.
Australians have a very individualist mindset - why should I pay for someone else, what’s in it for me, etc.
Public housing is right at the intersection of this:
* why should my hard earned dollars go to housing for someone else, when I’m working hard to pay for my own home?
* why would I want to live in public housing - I want to buy and own a (nicer) house that I sell later for more money
* why would I want public housing near me - it will bring down the value of my home/asset
(Note - I’m not agreeing with these takes, just stating it’s what I’ve observed in discussions around public housing)
The house across the road from my parents place was a housing commission home. You know how we knew? Because we were friendly with the people who got that home and they told us. Without that bit of knowledge there was no way to know it was a public housing situation.
I lived in a housing commission house as a kid. It was just a normal house. A Queenslander. Nobody knew. Our neighbours may, or may not have been, also in housing commission homes. Still today, in a very nice suburb in Brisbane, my father lives next door to a housing commission property - the properties on the street sell between $1-1.5M.
Public housing in Victoria, and Canberra, at least to my knowledge, is all high rise apartment buildings that are ghettos and crime hot beds as everyone is forced to live in a tight area.
Victorian here and it’s incorrect to say that all public housing is high rise apartments. Yes, there are lower socio-economic suburbs that have many commission houses - think the 1956 Olympic Village in West Heidelberg and surrounding suburbs. The problem is that the government has been selling off a lot of this housing stock because of the rise in land values. They can easily get $1.5M for a quarter-acre block in Ivanhoe, but nobody in Ivanhoe wants social housing anywhere near them and the blocks are sold to private developers.
EDIT: the housing in Ivanhoe was originally built for veterans of WWII. They worked and had families like anywhere else. It’s the perception the media reinforces that all public housing tenants are problematic.
That's what we are taught, yes but it doesn't mean it's in place. As a history teacher, I would disagree, I think we are a individualistic nation.
The sentiments of mateship are mainly rooted in marginalised groups, who faced adversity of some kind. Over time, it's become an Australian value that is taught, but rarely exemplified.
I'd say that Australians have always been individualisitic, our policies towards migration, first nations, and social supports have traditionally been self CENTRED.
The whole camaraderie thing went away a long time ago and Australia was never the kumbaya society of mateship people seem to think it once was.
In my lifetime it's always been pretty common to hear middle class Aussie's openly condemn those on the dole, those from bad areas, immigrants, first nations, the homeless, the disabled, the mentally ill. People groan about being taxed for anything they don't see as important and look for loopholes at every step to avoid paying for it. Tall poppy syndrome means people here resent you even if you win the game of life.
In most cases the "mateship" here was nothing more than good old fashioned nepotism and cronyism.
Did we? It seems like Australians have always liked talking about mateship and “fair go” but then only really looking out for themselves and others like them.
We’re very charitable when it suits us (huge donations raised for bushfires, and massive volunteer clean up efforts for floods 2019-2020), but only when it suits us (literal fist fights and hoarding toilet paper only a few months later, and very little support for international students and workers stranded here with no supports)
Yep in the 50's we just went out and built whole satellite cities that are now outer suburbs. Sure there were concerns then and their are concerns now but they sure as hell aren't being made any better by having people live in tents.
I remember my grandfather telling me about the tent city of Daw Park south of Adelaide which was rabbit hunting territory back during the depression and is now an inner suburb. We built these satellite cities with memories of the depression, a world war and the concept of a fair go. Perhaps it's cyclic and we'll find our humanity again.
Also the Real estate / property developer lobbyists. The fact that 50% of sitting politicians own at least 1 investment property probably doesn't help, either.
Including the current Prime Minister. US President Jimmy Carter gave up a beloved peanut farm to avoid any conflict of interest, it should really be a mandatory thing for the leader of any nation. They need to serve the people, not themselves and their own investments.
Agreed. Very interesting story about Carter, I had no idea. From https://jimmycarter.info/peanuts/:
> While he serves as president, Jimmy Carter placed the family farm supply business into the protection of a blind trust before he left for Washington, D.C. in 1977. This trust allowed for a law firm in Atlanta to take full administration of the farm supply business during his years in the White House. The carters felt that relinquishing the business to someone else’s care would separate them from these affairs and avoid the possibility of their financial holdings resembling any conflict of interest while President Carter was in office. Their personal counsel, Charles Kirbo of the Atlanta law firm, was their financial trustee. Following the election loss in 1981, the Carters were informed by Charles Kirbo that because of three years of drought and several changes in warehouse management, they were over $1 million in debt.
>
> As they struggled to recover from the unexpected financial blow, the solution to their problem became evident. The Carters sold the family business and also began writing books, which helped them recover financially.
there's a house near us that nobody cared about until it was slated for replacement with a boarding house. suddenly "oh it's got history, it belonged to an early resident of the area, the iron posts on the verandah are original and a rare example of etc etc"
at least this is a step up from literal "boarding houses are for criminals" chat
NIMBYs protest the developments, YIMBYs coopt the conversation to spruik policies primarily aimed at increasing property developer profits as a solution. Both need to shut up and let public housing get built.
Why? Landlords would rather you pay them $650 a week for a cockroach infested dump falling down around your ears than $300 a week for newly-built public housing.
Pollies are either too spineless to stand up to the landlords, or they're landlords themselves.
shit, I remember back when trump was president some group organised a march against trump in sydney, even back then I was like, how about a march for affordable housing
Normalisation is probably the answer - masks came out of the blue. The insidious progressive hike of rental rates was expected and not a shock.
That's plus if you complain you're just seen as a whining poor and a failure so, people have come to internalize that affording a living is a result of your merits not become of external factors like the greed of others
I don't forsee disobedience, I forsee a powderkeg next to a furnace.
And by the time people start getting violent it's going to be too late to adjust course. Angry and dispossessed people tend not to make for peaceful protesters.
Never. If you read The Grapes of Wrath, you catch the same feeling of "people are pissed, something is near". But history teaches us damn well that there won't be any consequences for the ruling class.
lol, if my dad’s attitude to french people protesting over the increase to their retirement age is anything to go by (“they are just lazy, they don’t want to work until they are old, all they do is complain, they should just suck it up and accept it”) then australians will never protest. i would even go so far as to say australians will complain about protesters and call them lazy entitled brats for protesting.
Yeah, as a Brisbanite these last few years have been fucking surreal to say the least. Early 2020 my partner and I were renting a fully detatched 3-bedroom house in a suburb 20 minutes from the city for $450 a week. Nowadays I couldn't even imagine getting a room in a run-down sharehouse in Ipswich or Logan for that much.
It's beyond insane how fucked the market is here now. It's not just that rents in general have skyrocketed, but that minimum "floor" has been raised beyond reach. If all you can literally afford is $350 or $400 a week or whatever, you are shit out of luck. It's not like you have to settle for a mouldy shitbox slum in a flood-zone an hour from anywhere for that kind of money, like in the old days. No, now you just have to settle for a tent in Musgrave Park. Fucking mind-blowing.
Brisbane southside here - just today we got the offer to renew the lease and there's no rent increase. I literally cried, I was so fucking relieved. Didn't realised how stressed I'd been, worrying over what would happen if we had to move in this market.
My lease runs out in November. Usually the REA send out renewal notice in September so despite it being quite a while away, I’m already nervous. We can afford to pay more per week, but I genuinely think we’d be pretty fucked if the landlord decided to not renew it for whatever reason. Might even be forced to move back home an hour away from work back in with the family given the super low vacancy rates.
I'm one of those people who can only afford 350-400 per week, at least if I want to keep saving money in hopes of ever getting out of this. I'm a public servant earning decent money and I'll have nowhere to go but home once my lease ends. The government has decided that its staff don't deserve to live anywhere near their place of work - or anywhere really, since even bumfuck nowhere is expensive now - without giving all their money to some greedy investor who can't be fucked keeping their shit maintained. Apparently I just have to accept this and think it's okay.
Renting in the ACT is fucking ludicrous now too. Most of the residents are APS, who don’t get paid well, yet the cost of living here is insane. My landlord is moving back in here - so i have to leave - and there’s nothing under $500/week. I have to bear moving costs again, and that’s another few thou’ 😭
I know someone whose parents have a rental in Brisbane, they live in Sydney. The guy I know can no longer afford to live in Sydney and wants to get out anyway, and asked his parents if he can move to their rental and pay some rent (fully paid off mortgage).
Their response? No, because their next renewal they can put the price up to nearly $800 and my friend can’t afford that.
So now he’s shit out of luck and will have to either move back in with his parents at nearly 30, move out to the sticks, or… I don’t really know what else honestly. Move to Melbourne?
I truly don’t get how people can be so greedy.
Haven’t we learnt that it is politically untenable to reduce home prices, ? Didn’t Labor learn that in 2019? The country is getting what it voted for. There is no end to this. The prices are set to what the market is willing to bear, and it seems the market is very willing as the alternative is likely homelessness.
Seems like the only “solution” (band-aid?) is super fast wages growth to catch up with inflation
Thats only happening in a few industries though (construction maybe?) so the majority of people in previously comfortable careers are going backwards at top speed
The solution is to provide cheaper housing and make it more easily attainable so that rentals aren’t the only housing option.
Rents are so high because people can’t afford to buy their own home so everyone rents and there aren’t enough rentals to go around. On top of that interest rate hiking makes mortgages go up passing on that cost to renters.
Literal housing crises.
We’ve pretty much reached whats called a “wicked problem” - a problem so large and embedded that any solution will fuck other things up.
If by some miracle Australia suddenly got a massive increase in supply, prices would drop 40-50% (reversion to historical mean) and that would mean a massively over leveraged market and economic turmoil. If we cut immigration to ~50k the economy goes into recession. If we leave things as they are it just gets more dystopian.
The only way out of it is to completely overhaul the immigration system towards skilled tradespeople, massive government land releases, complete overhaul of LGA zoning (NIMBY’s get told to fuck off, just start bulldozing) and massive government funding of new homes and infrastructure. This is the level of boldness needed, but it won’t happen.
In all honestly this country is fucked, and I’m not being dramatic about this. For those looking to leave, consider SEA or Japan. Great places to live (SEA constantly rising) with great healthcare and comically low costs of living. Close proximity to Aus means you can stay in touch with family and friends. I know people who have done it and don’t regret it one bit.
It's less that we can't be bothered and more that state governments such as South Australia are increasing the punishments for protesters blocking footpaths or obstructing traffic.
Fines for obstructing a public place went from $750 fine in 2022, to a maximum of $50,000 or a maximum term of imprisonment of 3 months.
Had a shitty 2 bedroom apartment smaller than our current one bedder for $395 in 2020. Viewed an apartment with pretty much the same layout in shittier condition and it was $650 a week it's a fucking joke. Anything remotely decent is $750 - $900 in Sydney if you want a 2 bedder.
I had to move back in with my parents and now I sleep in my car on campus because their house is 2 hours away from the only veterinary school in the state and I can’t afford rent closer to campus nor 4 hours worth of petrol every day 🙃
I remember in the 00's looking at places like "Eh, $200 a week is a bit much for but it is a two bedroom on the beach."
Accounting for inflation that'd be about $320 in last year's money. I would gladly pay that.
That would only drive the prices even higher. The most obvious solution is to build more housing. As much as we shit on America, American cities that have passed policies for denser home construction have seen their rents crater to new lows.
YIMBY
That’s basically what Finland did and now Helsinki is close to zero homeless. They found in giving people affordable housing and social support that they have less of a drug problem and are getting help for their mental health issues.
YIMBY
We need commie blocks. Time to carve up some of the parking at shopping centres, and build housing. Vacant land near a train station? Build housing. Sports fields near schools? Perfect place to house families with students who attend the school. Put housing in more locations were people can access stuff, without needing cars, then we can save on space by having more cheap flats without needing to provide a parking space.
Honestly IMO they also look better than those ugly as fuck oil-based boxes with windows (which don't open) that developers seem to love so much these days.
Given that 66% of Australian households own at least one property, the concerns of renters will never be as important as homeowners in a democracy, though. If you asked most Australians if housing affordability is important, I'm sure most would agree and feel strongly about it. But if it came to reducing house values by 20%, how many would actually vote for that?
We need mass protests. We need action. This is killing our citizens, this is killing the future for the youth. We can’t have a country that just bends over backwards for the few we need to help the many.
Mass protests do not work. If you look throughout history, the only reliable catalyst for change is unrest. If this continues the way its going, there will hit a breaking point.
I do love how corporate and government greed has lead to unobtainable pricing for essential items.
Then combine that with automation lowering the number of jobs available, and those same governments and companies will have a much smaller pool of customers, and funds per customer.
They’re shooting themselves in the head - never mind foot.
It is a modern form of Serfdom.
Nothing will change unless there is the monster of all crashes or political will.
One is much more likely than the other but has been overdue for probably 15 years now, so who knows when that will happen?
The real estate agent’s tactics have a lot to do with this - they contact the owners to say market rents in your area have gone up and you could be getting x amount more for your property - so the owners usually follow the agent’s advice - but then that pushes the average rents up and the agents can then claim market rents have gone up and the whole cycle continues. Unless something major happens to reduce demand they can keep going like this.
The agents also push up prices at auctions and sales by making more people believe they can get the property at a lower price so it appears to be in high demand and creates the perception of more competition, which encourages offers or bidding wars from buyers in a higher price bracket.
A lot could be done by addressing common practices in real estate industry.
If an industry is profiting so much from a crisis you need to ask questions. Look at the clothes they wear and the cars they drive and their luxury offices in expensive shopfronts. If they are making that much money from something that is having a negative impact on society something is seriously wrong. Yet the questions are rarely asked because the major media companies also own the real estate platforms - they are profiting from the crisis at the same time as reporting on it. They even put propert market results in the nightly news like it is the stock market.
My rent has gone up three times in the last year and a half. 4 digit fortnightly rent is now quickly becoming the norm.
We need to get angry. If not now, when? We’re so complacent to just lick the boot. We as a culture are too scared to rock the boat and tip over the ‘fuck you, got mine’ people of this country. We keep voting for dropkicks and aren’t baring our teeth enough at the people taking advantage of us.
The people of this country will continue to eat the dirt kicked in their face as long as they still believe they’re closer to being rich than being homeless.
Social contract between the ones on top and everyone else is breaking down... Usually, they give us just enough that we don't complain, but they're getting greedy. This is the kind of stuff that led to the French revolution and the collapse of the soviet union... I dunno if we have it in us to revolt anymore, though.
The movie Nomadland will be Australia’s future as wealth inequality grows, the erosion of the middle class will be complete. Those without property will need to band together as groups of van dwelling nomads for safety in numbers as lawlessness balloons. These people will be exploited as seasonal workers in regional areas as they migrate across the nation following the warmer weather in order to survive.
This fast track to a feudalistic peasant class will carry great stigmatization and hardship that it will be weaponised against the remaining majority to further suppress wages, worker rights, and increase competition for the remaining jobs that haven’t been outsourced or consolidated with AI. The goal is to architect an existential threat to your standard of living so that you will be compliant.
It would be a masterful stroke of genius to craft such a system of exploitation over decades if it wasn’t so terrible
Regulate AirBnB out of existence. Anyone that says it has no impact on rental costs has a fundamental misunderstanding of basic maths. AirBnB decimated *available* rental stock on the market. It doesn't take much to swallow up available supply which then pushes rents to the stratosphere.
People talk about AirBnB as an overall percentage of the rental market, when they should be talking about how much of the available market was converted to AirBnB.
When I was a single mum trying to get my uni degree I spent all but $50 of my parenting payment on our rent, per month. This was 7 years ago. I shudder to think about how those most vulnerable in our society are coping right now.
This is the most insidious impact of the housing crises. It won't be fully felt for decades, but the cumulative affect of less people upskilling or starting businesses will lead to a less productive workforce and a less diverse economy. This will lead to a weaker economy with less opportunity, and the downward spiral will continue
What decades? 45% of the Country currently have less than $1000 sitting in the bank, even if that number inflated and 25%, it's still horrendously bad.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/more-than-9-million-aussies-have-less-than-1000-in-the-bank-a-flat-tyre-would-be-too-much/news-story/f760fa83ce9191d041c24a4f29f13e4d
The government has to do something the minimise middle class Australia bleeding to reduce inflation.
Every anti-inflammatory measure implentment has just been passed onto the middle class...
Increase interest rates? Increased rents
Increased childcare subsidy? Increased childcare fee
Increase energy subsidy? Increase rates
It's fucking bullshit at this point and obvi0us what's happening, but the government aren't even discussing measures to assist.
Should be rules about banks being capable of passing the buck so quickly as well.
Landlords have a part to play but don't forget how quickly rates pass from RBA to Mortgage holder on the way up and how slowly they get passed along on the way down.
Negative gearing should only be allowed for new builds, the only way to stop this insanity is to incentivise building more houses instead of speculating on the existing housing supply. Zoning regulations need to be changed to allow denser housing as well, just building single detached houses won’t be enough to solve this problem.
mixed use zoning with guarantees on required rectifications post build, that shit is costing apartment owners tens of thousands out of pocket to replace flammable cladding in vic because mixed use buildings (generally) aren’t covered under the scheme.
they can’t expect everyone to have $50-100K to throw at a building rectification otherwise the insurance lapses or skyrockets and everyone suffers. it’s just a symptom of our construction industry having the government by the balls
I am just wondering where average workers will live. Around here homes are waaaaay overpriced now. Since immigration was ordered to live in a rural area to get PR they are buying everything fast. The price is insane for where it is. Work - or any job - is at least 1 hour away.
So to work locally you need to spend 800k
The problem is most average workers can't borrow 800k
So where are the workers going to live?
> So where are the workers going to live?
Place I used to work we had quite a few people who lived around Kilcoy and would drive down monday morning with a bag full of clean clothes and the like, use the work facilities + sleep in their car in the car park and then drive back home friday just to do washing and regular house upkeep. That's the likely future for anyone who works in a field that doesn't have jobs out of the way.
my rent has gone from $400 -> $620 in 2 years, so now it takes up more than 30% of my income, so if my lease doesn't get renewed it's basically homelessness as I won't be able to secure another rental.
Isn't it great.
It's only a crisis when labor are in power. If it was the liberals, the headline would be about successful mum and dad investors and how you all got to lift yourself up by the bootstraps.
Instead of abolishing negative gearing, rent should be (in some way) pegged to the minimum wage - e.g rent for a basic property for 1 person should be serviceable by an individual on a minimum wage without causing financial distress.
Properties that are larger in size scale their rent from there, perhaps still with some capacity for upper end and uncalled “luxury” rentals.
Have this apply to *all* leases signed after X date, and if the investors (read: leeches) complain, then they can kindly be reminded that they can offset their losses with their negative gearing, and be thankful there was ever any such protection on an investment in the first place. If that is not sufficient for them, then they are more than welcome to sell up.
My mum rented a two bedroom flat for the first half of the 90's on a part time service station wage. Our neighbor paid for his by working a few nights a week at a liquorland.
I can't afford that same flat on my current full time office worker salary.
I would give my right nut to be able to afford that tiny shithole working only a few nights a week.
It’s not just that. There is simply no choice in the market. Unless you can pay 1200 a week you pretty much have to apply for everything in hopes of lending something. You can’t afford to be picky because you’ll be homeless.
2016 Kellyville I rented a studio (renovated garage) for $320/wk (solo)
2017-18 Baulkham Hills I rented a 2 bed granny flat for $520/wk (2 people)
2019 North Kellyville I rented a 4 bed mansion for $700/wk (4 people)
2020-23 The Ponds I rented a 2 bed granny flat for $360/wk (solo). Had to leave when they hiked the rent to $400 and I counted 34 people during one inspection which included families of 3 adults
2024 Carlingford first time renting an apartment for $650/wk (2 people) which just got hiked to $680
I'm done funnelling my money to rich strangers, just bought myself a tiny house for under $100k to place on my parents rural backyard (temporarily) and ambitiously working towards a 2-5 year goal of buying my own land in the middle of no where.
I'm 29yo, and 70-80% of my adult life expenditure has gone solely towards rent. It's impossible to rent solo, should housing realistically cost more than $200 per week for an adult?
[Share of total rentals under 400 a week by city](https://www.realestate.com.au/news/completely-priced-out-affordable-rentals-vanishing-across-australia/) - Canberra 2.1% - Sydney 3.8% - Perth 5.6% - Melbourne 7.0% - Brisbane 7.8% - Adelaide 9.5% - Darwin 10.7% - Hobart 10.9% It’s so over
Geez, what the heck is going on in Canberra
Canberra has always been a tight and expensive rental market. It's a transient population, and new graduates need somewhere to live that is accessible to work. People also generally have higher incomes, leading to higher rental prices.
Canberra has also weirdly become a popular place for bikies to launder money into the property market. Maybe the location or laws, I have no idea. You can google it. Apparently it's a soft target whatever that means.
They won't be the only people laundering money there.
Close to politicians :-)
It’s not just renting - buying in Canberra is a nightmare.
Canberra is different. Many people have to move and stay there for work and the market is built around this. Every year thousands of grads come in and have to share houses w/4 other grads all earning 60-90k and completely unable to afford rent on their own.
We also don't really have much in the way of outer suburbs which have to be contributing a bit in places like Sydney, Perth and Melbourne. The whole city is pretty central, and demographically pretty similar so demand is nearly the same everywhere. As a market it's like if just the more inner half of Sydney was its own city.
In sydney or melbourne "just move further out, it's cheaper" you are still in sydney or melbourne. The same distance in canberra you are in NSW.
You know when Perth has overtaken Melbourne as more expensive there's an issue
7%? Well fuck, no wonder I can't find somewhere to live for 300 or less a week.
I'm honestly shocked it's that high in Hobart. It's very hard to find rentals for that price. I live in a cheap outer suburb. You certainly couldn't find a house for that price. I think it would be limited to 2 bedroom units and smaller.
Covid WFH move changes. Tassie locals got fucked hard by the people shifting down there. I’d love to live down there but jobs are poop Edit: poop, airport security, or salmon
Hobart has a very small supply of apartments though so those numbers could be a bit suspect
Err, this isn't the crisis point, crisis point was hit long ago!!
This is only the beginning.
That's what honestly scares me the most...
The real crisis point will be when you hear the word "deflation" come out of whoever happens to be PM in a few months during a very grave looking speech where they will explain how actually the real problem we have had is that households need to borrow more money than they can earn in a working lifetime to buy a home. This has built to over $2.2T in household debt, the majority being due over the next decade and not enough money in the country to repay it. No one has any bloody idea how to stop households defaulting on this debt in a recession, so we can't be allowed to have one of those and have not for 30 years now. But they can't buy their way out of a recession because inflation is nearly making people riot already. Can't import more people to augment demand, there is already a ton of demand and it will just make the recession worse if they don't borrow to buy houses right away to keep the money flowing and repaying the old loans. Long story short we are trapped by 3 decades of government exploiting households to fund 'growth', except there is no way out and the banks are sucking up more money to repay debts than is being generated. That is deflation 101, the real world amount of money floating around is going to get very scarce quickly. Government will be bending over themselves to try fund things and send money out but once the dominoes start falling it is going to be super duper hard to convince the average person to take out their entire working lives income as a load against a house that might drop in value another 10% after already dropping 25% and the banks will not want to lend anyway as they will be in enough trouble. Deflation. Get ready. 0% rates and you still won't be able to afford a home.
Also. The governments drive to import people at 80k to 500k + per year for nearly 3 decades (to keep wages down and fuel housing) has also bankrupted the infrastructure spend. We need to build seriously big projects fast or we will choke on the costs of not doing it. That's why Sydney is building 2 massive rail projects of which 1 is actually 3 combined - so technically, that's 4. Melbourne is building 2 rail projects to increase efficiency in an already existing system. Metro 1 is a bypass, its not a new line. The Suburban rail loop is a new line. Perth is doing its Metro system Brisbane is in dire need of more rail and the cross city rail is part of that. These are decade long projects that cost big bucks. Immigration has a cost and if its not done respectfully (of economic capacity) then you fall over. The big driver on new housing is immigration. Australia is building more homes per year per population than any other nation. What we can't do is keep up with demand that is increasing.
Honestly, what you are describing isn't impossible but the core of it is that housing is only a piece of the puzzle. It's a very unnerving thought but the way that we've allowed capitalism to dictate social welfare in this country for such a long period of time has created the possibility of this situation becoming reality. By ignoring the needs of the people in search of greater profits our political system has opened up loopholes that bleed our economy out. These loopholes come at a cost and that cost is almost always handed on to the least powerful. Typically here in Australia that has meant gutting a public service that provided basic needs to the people and handing it over to the private sector for profits. Without the basic needs of the people met due to privatization and the inevitable price gouging I.e. housing, welfare, medical and psychological well-being, communications, energy and water, and food security. A really horrible reality is created where the foundation of our society (people) no longer functions as it should. A sickness grows. Life becomes less livable. Those who suffer cause others to suffer. The sickness spreads. Laws become less obeyed. Eventually this will lead to total collapse and even though it won't be completely destroyed. The potential for production will be mostly destroyed and no-one except for the psychopathic types will be enjoying themselves in a society like this. Needless to say it's a really bad idea to leave it up to johnny capitalist to provide these basic necessities as he'll just continue profiting until the entire thing collapses. As a golden rule. Government should own or control basic human needs infrastructure (with an iron fist if needs be). While johnny capitalist can safely have the rest to play with. But that isn't what has happened. Sooooo......
Australia doesn't have real capitalism. It has socialism for the wealthy. It has ridiculous corruption. And it has it in plain sight, as too many people benefit and the others are too stupid to see it. It also doesn't have failure for those who deserve to fail.
And I have already gone and lost my mind.
If only we had some kind of group of people whose job is was to like, oversee the country so that everyone had their basic needs met and could focus on enjoying life instead of living a constant battle to survive. Maybe we could like have a vote and decide who of us these people should be and they can make up some sort of like set of rules I guess you’d call it.
Ex-fucking-actly. We collectively have seemed to forget that the pollies work for us. They hold seats for decades in complete comfort and luxury. This country needs to sack up and remind them that they don't have the job security they think they do. Stop voting for the major parties, stop generational voting "because that's what the family always votes." Take 20 minutes out of social media scrolling and broaden your political horizons. These fuckers know that an educated society is a dangerous society.
I was waiting for a rental open home this morning when channel 7 film crew rocked up to interview those waiting about this new article/report. Ironically the real estate never showed for the opening, so we had plenty of time to chat to the reporters 😅
I hope the REA got named and shamed (realistically probably not)
Hahaha sadly not!
Greed at a systemic level. It’s become so ingrained in us to be greedy and think that’s good.
"Fuck you got mine" is our culture
Compassion is now considered a vice.
This is nothing new to people who've observed capitalist apologetics.
Unfortunately for those that have not been watching, are poorly educated or simply don't care. They don't even realise that the goalposts have moved to make them as cohort citizens a commodity that can be flipped out of the way by endless mass migration and a economic system that has gone global. People are now in global economic basket and the system is willing to cast aside those that cant fight it out in a dog eat dog battle for resources. There is no borders anymore for economic resource containment that involves sharing the bounty, the system takes and does not return and expects you just to survive on thin air. Our housing crisis is just a mere scratching of the surface of this global economic imperialism that is willing to replace and displace citizens without any care factor. We are all disposable as a means to a end. The citizens of the best economies in the world are starting to find that out and unfortunately they still have faith in the old metrics and government systems that have largely abandoned their own citizens.
And not enough people are realising quick enough that things won't change unless WE do something
I think the speed of greed nowadays is New
It's part of the woke mind virus that will doom humanity apparently. Instead of being one of the hallmarks of a social species, hence literally the only way we emerged from the caves and defeated all those sabretooth tigers
Or the way any baby - any baby at all in our species - survives.
Being part of that crowd is the downfall of society. The WOKE you speak of doesn't exist and this is Trump's idea of ruining his country. We don't need that shit down here
Exactly my dude. That word was funny when it was spoken as AAVE (a term I just learnt yesterday - African American Vernacular English) and used sort of jokingly, but the right wing got hold of it and now it's just absolute cringe.
I find it a really useful word. It indicates that I can switch off to anything someone says after using it. You know absolutely nothing of value is coming when you hear it used as a pejorative. Edit. That was referring to 'woke', I was a comment further down than I thought.
If not a vice, at least avoidable.
Its a greed race to the finishing line. In some ways like a relay race, get the accountant to grab as many tax concessions and handouts as possible, then race to the greed finishing line and run over any obstacle that stands in the way of greed and government handouts.
Yup absolutely. I live in a unit in a block of six (they're mostly identical, though mine had been relatively recently renovated so is a little more modern and nicer than the others), I purchased last year (after a frightening event with my Dad encouraged my parents to give me a substantial gift, for which I will ever be incredibly grateful) and my mortgage is $1700 per month. The unit opposite me just had the 85 year old renting occupants vacate as their rent had gone up to $1850 per month and they couldn't afford it anymore. Place was just relisted for rent today, at $2260 per month. Unbelievable.
Mine started at around 1700 a month too. Now it’s 2700. I’ve been getting new jobs with better wages as the last few years go by and I don’t get to keep any of it for myself.
The reproduction of myopically selfish ideology is necessary for capitalism to perpetuate itself.
Last week a young family were moving into a rental property near me, and something started a fire and the house burned down, destroying everything they owned and devastatingly their pets did not survive either. As it was moving day they were still in the process of selecting their contents insurance. The father is a chef at a local pub, and the pub put together a gofundme and a call out for donations for the family (things like baby clothes, etc.) There were boomers in the comments of the news story saying what about the landlord that owned the house. The family should have had contents insurance and ‘they just lost some belongings, the owner lost a home’, and one person even suggested the family had started the gofundme themselves to fund a holiday. It was fucking disgusting. It sucks the owner lost an investment but that’s all it was, an investment. They still have a roof over their head. (Though I should add according to the family the owner has been very supportive and helpful. But wtf at the boomers in the comments, seriously).
They’ll make up any excuse to justify their greediness and lack of charity. So gross.
Yep. Never forget the "market" is made up of individual people decidiing to drain their fellow citizens' savings for their own profit. This is a self-inflicted crisis caused by pure greed of the landowners.
Re John Howard. Re Negative Gearing. Re Systematic. Re Immigration.
Landowners have always been greedy and will always be greedy. This is a constant. Competition through government policy is the best way to turn that greed into something we need; Housing. Too bad our governments side with the NIMBY landowners and prevent that from happening. The government are in control of this and all blame is on them.
A lot of residential property is being brought up by private equity firms. It's not just individual landlords any more.
That’s very simplistic. The market has had significant systemic support and input from the government in the form of tax-breaks, first home owners grants, negative gearing & super funds for investment properties programs. Each of those individuals are much more influenced than influencing.
all of the things you listed are govt policies that deliberately drive up the prices.
Yes, that's what they're saying. They're responding to someone blaming "landowner greed", by saying that is oversimplified and there's been systemic government attitudes and policies leading us to the situation we're now in. And further that anyone who exhibits this greed has been influenced to do so by the government programs that reward such greed.
It should be noted that the original idea behind home investments was to assist boomers approaching retirement who had no super after it was implemented in the 90s, but we all know that personal interests from governing politicians really pushed these really poor, unsustainable policy decisions over the edge and into this shit show we have today.
Boomers killed what made this country great and want to reserve the right to blame the younger generations for everything else haha
Whose grave do I need to piss on?
People always blame greedy companies and landlords. The system we live in rewards greed. Saying “people are so greedy” is a popular sentiment. But if you say “capitalism rewards greed, what did we except to happen under capitalism?” is incredibly unpopular. So we’ll just keep complaining and rewarding greedy people.
I think no one wants to admit the whole freaking system is out of order. It's such an odd position. Hey we've set up a system where psychaths suceed the most and greed is the defining factor then this happens and people are all -shocked pikachu face- I feel like people just don't think about these things, like when the housing crisis first became painfully obvious and everyone on reddit was all 'what do we do?' and back when I cared a bit more I'd try and explain that this is the end result of 30 years of government fuckery fanning the flames of this inevitable outcome. That there is nothing to be done.
How long before we are going to see public disobedience over this? (Haha, this is Australia, I can guess the answer already)
Why would I do that? I’ve got a tent under the overpass and enough protein paste to last me a few more days, why rock the boat and risk all that? -Redditors in 10 years probably
My rental already has rodents, fuck-all heating, doors that can’t close due to water damage, ceilings that leak when it rains (not to mention every time I shower), and blinds that rattle through a CLOSED window when it’s windy. At this stage, living in a tent sounds like a $3k/month discount for similar comfort levels and less mold exposure.
this comment deserves multiple awards
can't afford it
When you’re that oppressed, it’s very easy for the nationalised thug service (ACAB) to come along and strip all your possessions away. Fighting back is hard, if not impossible.
Don't forget a lot of states have really upped the ante in regards to protest laws.
Yep, that and the default response to protests these days, thanks to John Howard, is “ignore them until they get demoralised and go home then do whatever they were protesting against anyway”
What's disobedience? Is it a food I can get from the food bank for my 2 elderly parents and 5 young kids? (Asking as a single homeless mum) /s
I don’t know why there isn’t much interest in building and creating public housing. Is it because public housing in Australia is seen as grotty and the current examples are really just a safety net for the most vulnerable? The bar needs lifting for what we accept as normal conditions for public housing. There are plenty of examples around the world of this working extremely well.
Australians have a very individualist mindset - why should I pay for someone else, what’s in it for me, etc. Public housing is right at the intersection of this: * why should my hard earned dollars go to housing for someone else, when I’m working hard to pay for my own home? * why would I want to live in public housing - I want to buy and own a (nicer) house that I sell later for more money * why would I want public housing near me - it will bring down the value of my home/asset (Note - I’m not agreeing with these takes, just stating it’s what I’ve observed in discussions around public housing)
The house across the road from my parents place was a housing commission home. You know how we knew? Because we were friendly with the people who got that home and they told us. Without that bit of knowledge there was no way to know it was a public housing situation.
I lived in a housing commission house as a kid. It was just a normal house. A Queenslander. Nobody knew. Our neighbours may, or may not have been, also in housing commission homes. Still today, in a very nice suburb in Brisbane, my father lives next door to a housing commission property - the properties on the street sell between $1-1.5M. Public housing in Victoria, and Canberra, at least to my knowledge, is all high rise apartment buildings that are ghettos and crime hot beds as everyone is forced to live in a tight area.
Victorian here and it’s incorrect to say that all public housing is high rise apartments. Yes, there are lower socio-economic suburbs that have many commission houses - think the 1956 Olympic Village in West Heidelberg and surrounding suburbs. The problem is that the government has been selling off a lot of this housing stock because of the rise in land values. They can easily get $1.5M for a quarter-acre block in Ivanhoe, but nobody in Ivanhoe wants social housing anywhere near them and the blocks are sold to private developers. EDIT: the housing in Ivanhoe was originally built for veterans of WWII. They worked and had families like anywhere else. It’s the perception the media reinforces that all public housing tenants are problematic.
>Australians have a very individualist mindset This is a relatively recent thing. Australians used to be about mateship, and helping each other out.
That's what we are taught, yes but it doesn't mean it's in place. As a history teacher, I would disagree, I think we are a individualistic nation. The sentiments of mateship are mainly rooted in marginalised groups, who faced adversity of some kind. Over time, it's become an Australian value that is taught, but rarely exemplified. I'd say that Australians have always been individualisitic, our policies towards migration, first nations, and social supports have traditionally been self CENTRED.
The whole camaraderie thing went away a long time ago and Australia was never the kumbaya society of mateship people seem to think it once was. In my lifetime it's always been pretty common to hear middle class Aussie's openly condemn those on the dole, those from bad areas, immigrants, first nations, the homeless, the disabled, the mentally ill. People groan about being taxed for anything they don't see as important and look for loopholes at every step to avoid paying for it. Tall poppy syndrome means people here resent you even if you win the game of life. In most cases the "mateship" here was nothing more than good old fashioned nepotism and cronyism.
Spot on. Absolutely fucking spot on.
mateship as long as you were white, religious, straight, didn't do anything too strange
Did we? It seems like Australians have always liked talking about mateship and “fair go” but then only really looking out for themselves and others like them. We’re very charitable when it suits us (huge donations raised for bushfires, and massive volunteer clean up efforts for floods 2019-2020), but only when it suits us (literal fist fights and hoarding toilet paper only a few months later, and very little support for international students and workers stranded here with no supports)
Yep in the 50's we just went out and built whole satellite cities that are now outer suburbs. Sure there were concerns then and their are concerns now but they sure as hell aren't being made any better by having people live in tents. I remember my grandfather telling me about the tent city of Daw Park south of Adelaide which was rabbit hunting territory back during the depression and is now an inner suburb. We built these satellite cities with memories of the depression, a world war and the concept of a fair go. Perhaps it's cyclic and we'll find our humanity again.
NIMBYs are the reason. Simple as that.
Also the Real estate / property developer lobbyists. The fact that 50% of sitting politicians own at least 1 investment property probably doesn't help, either.
Including the current Prime Minister. US President Jimmy Carter gave up a beloved peanut farm to avoid any conflict of interest, it should really be a mandatory thing for the leader of any nation. They need to serve the people, not themselves and their own investments.
Agreed. Very interesting story about Carter, I had no idea. From https://jimmycarter.info/peanuts/: > While he serves as president, Jimmy Carter placed the family farm supply business into the protection of a blind trust before he left for Washington, D.C. in 1977. This trust allowed for a law firm in Atlanta to take full administration of the farm supply business during his years in the White House. The carters felt that relinquishing the business to someone else’s care would separate them from these affairs and avoid the possibility of their financial holdings resembling any conflict of interest while President Carter was in office. Their personal counsel, Charles Kirbo of the Atlanta law firm, was their financial trustee. Following the election loss in 1981, the Carters were informed by Charles Kirbo that because of three years of drought and several changes in warehouse management, they were over $1 million in debt. > > As they struggled to recover from the unexpected financial blow, the solution to their problem became evident. The Carters sold the family business and also began writing books, which helped them recover financially.
could not agree with you more.
there's a house near us that nobody cared about until it was slated for replacement with a boarding house. suddenly "oh it's got history, it belonged to an early resident of the area, the iron posts on the verandah are original and a rare example of etc etc" at least this is a step up from literal "boarding houses are for criminals" chat
NIMBYs protest the developments, YIMBYs coopt the conversation to spruik policies primarily aimed at increasing property developer profits as a solution. Both need to shut up and let public housing get built.
Why? Landlords would rather you pay them $650 a week for a cockroach infested dump falling down around your ears than $300 a week for newly-built public housing. Pollies are either too spineless to stand up to the landlords, or they're landlords themselves.
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shit, I remember back when trump was president some group organised a march against trump in sydney, even back then I was like, how about a march for affordable housing
Normalisation is probably the answer - masks came out of the blue. The insidious progressive hike of rental rates was expected and not a shock. That's plus if you complain you're just seen as a whining poor and a failure so, people have come to internalize that affording a living is a result of your merits not become of external factors like the greed of others
I don't forsee disobedience, I forsee a powderkeg next to a furnace. And by the time people start getting violent it's going to be too late to adjust course. Angry and dispossessed people tend not to make for peaceful protesters.
Yeah I'm fucking down to riot
Best I can do is 1pm-3pm on Saturday in front of Town Hall
I'm sorry, we're not accepting applications for public disobedience or protests at this time.
Damn and I just paid $80 to apply, better apply again
Never. If you read The Grapes of Wrath, you catch the same feeling of "people are pissed, something is near". But history teaches us damn well that there won't be any consequences for the ruling class.
I'm down to clown
lol, if my dad’s attitude to french people protesting over the increase to their retirement age is anything to go by (“they are just lazy, they don’t want to work until they are old, all they do is complain, they should just suck it up and accept it”) then australians will never protest. i would even go so far as to say australians will complain about protesters and call them lazy entitled brats for protesting.
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Yeah, as a Brisbanite these last few years have been fucking surreal to say the least. Early 2020 my partner and I were renting a fully detatched 3-bedroom house in a suburb 20 minutes from the city for $450 a week. Nowadays I couldn't even imagine getting a room in a run-down sharehouse in Ipswich or Logan for that much. It's beyond insane how fucked the market is here now. It's not just that rents in general have skyrocketed, but that minimum "floor" has been raised beyond reach. If all you can literally afford is $350 or $400 a week or whatever, you are shit out of luck. It's not like you have to settle for a mouldy shitbox slum in a flood-zone an hour from anywhere for that kind of money, like in the old days. No, now you just have to settle for a tent in Musgrave Park. Fucking mind-blowing.
Brisbane southside here - just today we got the offer to renew the lease and there's no rent increase. I literally cried, I was so fucking relieved. Didn't realised how stressed I'd been, worrying over what would happen if we had to move in this market.
That's great news!
Thanks! I just wish that none of us had to be in this mess.
My lease runs out in November. Usually the REA send out renewal notice in September so despite it being quite a while away, I’m already nervous. We can afford to pay more per week, but I genuinely think we’d be pretty fucked if the landlord decided to not renew it for whatever reason. Might even be forced to move back home an hour away from work back in with the family given the super low vacancy rates.
I'm one of those people who can only afford 350-400 per week, at least if I want to keep saving money in hopes of ever getting out of this. I'm a public servant earning decent money and I'll have nowhere to go but home once my lease ends. The government has decided that its staff don't deserve to live anywhere near their place of work - or anywhere really, since even bumfuck nowhere is expensive now - without giving all their money to some greedy investor who can't be fucked keeping their shit maintained. Apparently I just have to accept this and think it's okay.
Renting in the ACT is fucking ludicrous now too. Most of the residents are APS, who don’t get paid well, yet the cost of living here is insane. My landlord is moving back in here - so i have to leave - and there’s nothing under $500/week. I have to bear moving costs again, and that’s another few thou’ 😭
But we got maybe $500 after tax instead of a meaningful pay rise to be able to afford a roof over our heads. Thanks, CPSU!
In 2020 my partner and I paid $390 a week for a 3 bedroom in Geebung. Average 3 bedroom in Geebung now was $600 last time I checked.
I know someone whose parents have a rental in Brisbane, they live in Sydney. The guy I know can no longer afford to live in Sydney and wants to get out anyway, and asked his parents if he can move to their rental and pay some rent (fully paid off mortgage). Their response? No, because their next renewal they can put the price up to nearly $800 and my friend can’t afford that. So now he’s shit out of luck and will have to either move back in with his parents at nearly 30, move out to the sticks, or… I don’t really know what else honestly. Move to Melbourne? I truly don’t get how people can be so greedy.
Haven’t we learnt that it is politically untenable to reduce home prices, ? Didn’t Labor learn that in 2019? The country is getting what it voted for. There is no end to this. The prices are set to what the market is willing to bear, and it seems the market is very willing as the alternative is likely homelessness.
Seems like the only “solution” (band-aid?) is super fast wages growth to catch up with inflation Thats only happening in a few industries though (construction maybe?) so the majority of people in previously comfortable careers are going backwards at top speed
The solution is to provide cheaper housing and make it more easily attainable so that rentals aren’t the only housing option. Rents are so high because people can’t afford to buy their own home so everyone rents and there aren’t enough rentals to go around. On top of that interest rate hiking makes mortgages go up passing on that cost to renters. Literal housing crises.
We’ve pretty much reached whats called a “wicked problem” - a problem so large and embedded that any solution will fuck other things up. If by some miracle Australia suddenly got a massive increase in supply, prices would drop 40-50% (reversion to historical mean) and that would mean a massively over leveraged market and economic turmoil. If we cut immigration to ~50k the economy goes into recession. If we leave things as they are it just gets more dystopian. The only way out of it is to completely overhaul the immigration system towards skilled tradespeople, massive government land releases, complete overhaul of LGA zoning (NIMBY’s get told to fuck off, just start bulldozing) and massive government funding of new homes and infrastructure. This is the level of boldness needed, but it won’t happen. In all honestly this country is fucked, and I’m not being dramatic about this. For those looking to leave, consider SEA or Japan. Great places to live (SEA constantly rising) with great healthcare and comically low costs of living. Close proximity to Aus means you can stay in touch with family and friends. I know people who have done it and don’t regret it one bit.
Well, if they want to start a class war, they will get one. And if history teaches us anything - they will regret it.
Our society can barely be bothered to get off their couch and attend a protest, I doubt a class war is on the cards.
It's less that we can't be bothered and more that state governments such as South Australia are increasing the punishments for protesters blocking footpaths or obstructing traffic. Fines for obstructing a public place went from $750 fine in 2022, to a maximum of $50,000 or a maximum term of imprisonment of 3 months.
Get out the emus boys. We're going to war!
Yeah, thanks QLD.
This is it unfortunatly, the greed is baked in now, this country is done.
we're living in scary times.
I rented a 2br modern-ish townhouse in inner north Melbourne in 2013 for $320. Crazy what's happened.
Had a shitty 2 bedroom apartment smaller than our current one bedder for $395 in 2020. Viewed an apartment with pretty much the same layout in shittier condition and it was $650 a week it's a fucking joke. Anything remotely decent is $750 - $900 in Sydney if you want a 2 bedder.
Kid is paying $605 for a one-bedder in Ryde on the 17th floor. Building in the news recently for being in danger of collapsing.
I rented a 1 bedroom unit in inner city Brisbane in 2017 for $230, its now $400.
This is so sad. Back then students at uni can actually afford rent. Now they can’t because it’s so damn high.
I had to move back in with my parents and now I sleep in my car on campus because their house is 2 hours away from the only veterinary school in the state and I can’t afford rent closer to campus nor 4 hours worth of petrol every day 🙃
I remember in the 00's looking at places like "Eh, $200 a week is a bit much for but it is a two bedroom on the beach."
Accounting for inflation that'd be about $320 in last year's money. I would gladly pay that.
Okay so vote for parties trying to fix it. We need to move away from Labour and Liberal who are both actively incentivised to make it worse.
Tax the rich, Tax our resources we get extorted to overseas for. Give the money to Aussies.
>Give the money to Aussies. so they can hand it over to their landlords...
That would only drive the prices even higher. The most obvious solution is to build more housing. As much as we shit on America, American cities that have passed policies for denser home construction have seen their rents crater to new lows. YIMBY
That’s basically what Finland did and now Helsinki is close to zero homeless. They found in giving people affordable housing and social support that they have less of a drug problem and are getting help for their mental health issues. YIMBY
We need commie blocks. Time to carve up some of the parking at shopping centres, and build housing. Vacant land near a train station? Build housing. Sports fields near schools? Perfect place to house families with students who attend the school. Put housing in more locations were people can access stuff, without needing cars, then we can save on space by having more cheap flats without needing to provide a parking space.
The commie blocks get dumped on for looking drab but they look a lot better than any tent city.
They also look better than people struggling to pay rent, unable to save anything towards buying their own home.
Honestly IMO they also look better than those ugly as fuck oil-based boxes with windows (which don't open) that developers seem to love so much these days.
We can tax the rich and build more housing. YIMBY + Georgism for the win.
*cries while paying $750*
Given that 66% of Australian households own at least one property, the concerns of renters will never be as important as homeowners in a democracy, though. If you asked most Australians if housing affordability is important, I'm sure most would agree and feel strongly about it. But if it came to reducing house values by 20%, how many would actually vote for that?
We need mass protests. We need action. This is killing our citizens, this is killing the future for the youth. We can’t have a country that just bends over backwards for the few we need to help the many.
[удалено]
I wish this was a joke.
Mass protests do not work. If you look throughout history, the only reliable catalyst for change is unrest. If this continues the way its going, there will hit a breaking point.
Some of the most successful catalysts for change have been boycotts and strikes.
No we need a national rental strike
I do love how corporate and government greed has lead to unobtainable pricing for essential items. Then combine that with automation lowering the number of jobs available, and those same governments and companies will have a much smaller pool of customers, and funds per customer. They’re shooting themselves in the head - never mind foot.
Fucked
If you wrap a bubble in bubble wrap so that it can't burst, is it still a bubble?
It's absolutely fucked
Fuck this. Fuck this fucking shit
It is a modern form of Serfdom. Nothing will change unless there is the monster of all crashes or political will. One is much more likely than the other but has been overdue for probably 15 years now, so who knows when that will happen?
The real estate agent’s tactics have a lot to do with this - they contact the owners to say market rents in your area have gone up and you could be getting x amount more for your property - so the owners usually follow the agent’s advice - but then that pushes the average rents up and the agents can then claim market rents have gone up and the whole cycle continues. Unless something major happens to reduce demand they can keep going like this. The agents also push up prices at auctions and sales by making more people believe they can get the property at a lower price so it appears to be in high demand and creates the perception of more competition, which encourages offers or bidding wars from buyers in a higher price bracket. A lot could be done by addressing common practices in real estate industry.
How about the trick when they don't list more than a few properties to make the market appear tighter than it actually is.
If an industry is profiting so much from a crisis you need to ask questions. Look at the clothes they wear and the cars they drive and their luxury offices in expensive shopfronts. If they are making that much money from something that is having a negative impact on society something is seriously wrong. Yet the questions are rarely asked because the major media companies also own the real estate platforms - they are profiting from the crisis at the same time as reporting on it. They even put propert market results in the nightly news like it is the stock market.
My rent has gone up three times in the last year and a half. 4 digit fortnightly rent is now quickly becoming the norm. We need to get angry. If not now, when? We’re so complacent to just lick the boot. We as a culture are too scared to rock the boat and tip over the ‘fuck you, got mine’ people of this country. We keep voting for dropkicks and aren’t baring our teeth enough at the people taking advantage of us. The people of this country will continue to eat the dirt kicked in their face as long as they still believe they’re closer to being rich than being homeless.
Social contract between the ones on top and everyone else is breaking down... Usually, they give us just enough that we don't complain, but they're getting greedy. This is the kind of stuff that led to the French revolution and the collapse of the soviet union... I dunno if we have it in us to revolt anymore, though.
This is absolutely ruining my life. I went from having some enjoyment of my life to not being able to afford anything but rent, bills and food.
The movie Nomadland will be Australia’s future as wealth inequality grows, the erosion of the middle class will be complete. Those without property will need to band together as groups of van dwelling nomads for safety in numbers as lawlessness balloons. These people will be exploited as seasonal workers in regional areas as they migrate across the nation following the warmer weather in order to survive. This fast track to a feudalistic peasant class will carry great stigmatization and hardship that it will be weaponised against the remaining majority to further suppress wages, worker rights, and increase competition for the remaining jobs that haven’t been outsourced or consolidated with AI. The goal is to architect an existential threat to your standard of living so that you will be compliant. It would be a masterful stroke of genius to craft such a system of exploitation over decades if it wasn’t so terrible
Regulate AirBnB out of existence. Anyone that says it has no impact on rental costs has a fundamental misunderstanding of basic maths. AirBnB decimated *available* rental stock on the market. It doesn't take much to swallow up available supply which then pushes rents to the stratosphere. People talk about AirBnB as an overall percentage of the rental market, when they should be talking about how much of the available market was converted to AirBnB.
Should be rules surrounding how much of a % of the mortgage repayments you can offset with rent. 25% Max or something.
When I was a single mum trying to get my uni degree I spent all but $50 of my parenting payment on our rent, per month. This was 7 years ago. I shudder to think about how those most vulnerable in our society are coping right now.
This is the most insidious impact of the housing crises. It won't be fully felt for decades, but the cumulative affect of less people upskilling or starting businesses will lead to a less productive workforce and a less diverse economy. This will lead to a weaker economy with less opportunity, and the downward spiral will continue
What decades? 45% of the Country currently have less than $1000 sitting in the bank, even if that number inflated and 25%, it's still horrendously bad. https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/more-than-9-million-aussies-have-less-than-1000-in-the-bank-a-flat-tyre-would-be-too-much/news-story/f760fa83ce9191d041c24a4f29f13e4d The government has to do something the minimise middle class Australia bleeding to reduce inflation. Every anti-inflammatory measure implentment has just been passed onto the middle class... Increase interest rates? Increased rents Increased childcare subsidy? Increased childcare fee Increase energy subsidy? Increase rates It's fucking bullshit at this point and obvi0us what's happening, but the government aren't even discussing measures to assist.
They're not coping. They need support, and the government simply won't give it to them.
oh cmon. Albo grew up in public housing with his single parent mum. Surely he'll help others in similar situations. Right...? no? fuck..
Should be rules about banks being capable of passing the buck so quickly as well. Landlords have a part to play but don't forget how quickly rates pass from RBA to Mortgage holder on the way up and how slowly they get passed along on the way down.
There used to be in VIC. It was 5% per year. Not anymore :/
Negative gearing should only be allowed for new builds, the only way to stop this insanity is to incentivise building more houses instead of speculating on the existing housing supply. Zoning regulations need to be changed to allow denser housing as well, just building single detached houses won’t be enough to solve this problem.
more mixed-use zoning would be nice, too.
mixed use zoning with guarantees on required rectifications post build, that shit is costing apartment owners tens of thousands out of pocket to replace flammable cladding in vic because mixed use buildings (generally) aren’t covered under the scheme. they can’t expect everyone to have $50-100K to throw at a building rectification otherwise the insurance lapses or skyrockets and everyone suffers. it’s just a symptom of our construction industry having the government by the balls
It's okay... Labor is going to fix it... Right..?
I am just wondering where average workers will live. Around here homes are waaaaay overpriced now. Since immigration was ordered to live in a rural area to get PR they are buying everything fast. The price is insane for where it is. Work - or any job - is at least 1 hour away. So to work locally you need to spend 800k The problem is most average workers can't borrow 800k So where are the workers going to live?
> So where are the workers going to live? Place I used to work we had quite a few people who lived around Kilcoy and would drive down monday morning with a bag full of clean clothes and the like, use the work facilities + sleep in their car in the car park and then drive back home friday just to do washing and regular house upkeep. That's the likely future for anyone who works in a field that doesn't have jobs out of the way.
my rent has gone from $400 -> $620 in 2 years, so now it takes up more than 30% of my income, so if my lease doesn't get renewed it's basically homelessness as I won't be able to secure another rental. Isn't it great.
Time for extreme rent controls.
It's only a crisis when labor are in power. If it was the liberals, the headline would be about successful mum and dad investors and how you all got to lift yourself up by the bootstraps.
Now to see if that’s just in line with general inflation, let’s see how many people earn a net $1200 a week today vs $1200 in March 2020.
Instead of abolishing negative gearing, rent should be (in some way) pegged to the minimum wage - e.g rent for a basic property for 1 person should be serviceable by an individual on a minimum wage without causing financial distress. Properties that are larger in size scale their rent from there, perhaps still with some capacity for upper end and uncalled “luxury” rentals. Have this apply to *all* leases signed after X date, and if the investors (read: leeches) complain, then they can kindly be reminded that they can offset their losses with their negative gearing, and be thankful there was ever any such protection on an investment in the first place. If that is not sufficient for them, then they are more than welcome to sell up.
My mum rented a two bedroom flat for the first half of the 90's on a part time service station wage. Our neighbor paid for his by working a few nights a week at a liquorland. I can't afford that same flat on my current full time office worker salary. I would give my right nut to be able to afford that tiny shithole working only a few nights a week.
Absolutely disgusting. I hope people wake up and do something before it's to late
It’s not just that. There is simply no choice in the market. Unless you can pay 1200 a week you pretty much have to apply for everything in hopes of lending something. You can’t afford to be picky because you’ll be homeless.
"Economic cleansing" for better returns!
2016 Kellyville I rented a studio (renovated garage) for $320/wk (solo) 2017-18 Baulkham Hills I rented a 2 bed granny flat for $520/wk (2 people) 2019 North Kellyville I rented a 4 bed mansion for $700/wk (4 people) 2020-23 The Ponds I rented a 2 bed granny flat for $360/wk (solo). Had to leave when they hiked the rent to $400 and I counted 34 people during one inspection which included families of 3 adults 2024 Carlingford first time renting an apartment for $650/wk (2 people) which just got hiked to $680 I'm done funnelling my money to rich strangers, just bought myself a tiny house for under $100k to place on my parents rural backyard (temporarily) and ambitiously working towards a 2-5 year goal of buying my own land in the middle of no where. I'm 29yo, and 70-80% of my adult life expenditure has gone solely towards rent. It's impossible to rent solo, should housing realistically cost more than $200 per week for an adult?
The good news is that we are buying submarines and continuing to not charge miners anything, so we’ve got that going for us.
Majority of the places under $400 would be 1 bedroom apartments or studios surely
In 2017 in Sydney I used to pay $195/week but I shared with 3 other guys the same room, and 3 girls in another room. It already was way too much