We’ll see if this actually happens. This line sticks out to me as well:
closing a loophole allowing multiple rent hikes a year and forcing landlords to offer tenants a free way to pay electronically.
I haven’t run into that myself, but I understand some tenants are forced onto payment systems that have fees, which is abhorrent.
I understand some tenants are forced onto payment systems that have fees
The sickening thing is that those payment systems are either operated by or affiliated with the REAs. Everyone involved deserves to be sued and/or fined into oblivion.
“We wanted more money.”
“Oh okay, carry on.”
Sounds good. And rate rises aren’t an excuse. We don’t care that you paid a stupid amount for it and are struggling to afford your loan payments. Sell it like you would any other investment that suddenly went negative geared that you couldn’t afford to keep.
To Philip Lowe: the market decides rent rates only holds as long as the market is elastic. And most people have a huge barrier to moving.
From the US here but hopefully this gets fixed for ya’ll. Hopefully for us as well lol
I’m from the U.S. and I’m curious, are there any parts of Australia that are affordable?
Here in the states home ownership is not within reach for a lot of people.That said, there are some areas that are affordable, albeit not real attractive.
Serious question.
I’m not an expert on this but I’ll try:
Rental prices have been pretty bad across the board since the pandemic, but I understand it’s dropped back a little in regional areas since people have been moving back to the cities. Inflation has given landlords the excuse to pump up prices repeatedly. Some of it due to their own mortgage repayments going up, but the rest due to greed. Things are bad enough in the cities that some people are living out of their cars because they can’t afford the rent, or because there simply isn’t an available place to rent. And regional areas are constrained in supply due to holiday homes and airbnb etc which of course raises prices as well.
House prices are expensive everywhere, but cheaper in regional areas as you’d expect (but not what I’d call affordable). Wages are fairly high on average in Australia but the price to income ratio is very high, so it’s tough for many people to afford a home. And the ability to get a loan has become more challenging since interest rates have risen, and lending requirements have become somewhat more stringent. Some in the cities will do the whole long commute thing and save some money while having more opportunities for high wage employment, but it’s still expensive.
So the short answer is that it’s not really affordable anywhere to rent or buy, but it will depend on one’s individual circumstances. Definitely not a good situation all in all, but seems to mirror most Western democracies in recent years.
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