Sydney is now Australia's most expensive rental city. How are tenants and landlords coping? | 7.30

[Music] so we were paying 710 a week they wanted to put up to 890 a week I'm currently paying six seventy dollars a week my rent is going to go up to 850 per week our rent is 680 a week it's going up to 780. I don't even know what's happening with these rental prices in Sydney right now the Australian rental market is in crisis in Australia's Capital Cities tenants have been hit with the biggest rent increases on record to my weekend it's a Sydney will scan on me a 350 per week rental increase before the pandemic rents were Rising on about 25 of properties each year in the capital cities that's now jumped to nearly 75 the increases are being blamed on a whole lot of different factors but we wanted to find out how renters are coping essentially fallen off its hinges it's kind of riding through things like the gutter rusting you would assume might be a priority and then this area is like our entrance hallway where the mold damage is really visible Jack Butler has lived in this house in Sydney's inner West for the past three years he's dealt with ongoing problems like mold but says as a renter he generally tries to lay low historically I felt that in a lot of Sydney rentals if you don't cause too much fuss with the landlord that's a way of ensuring your rent doesn't increase significantly and that just doesn't seem to be the case at the moment said the driver what does he do Jack was expecting a rent increase but in the face of a 15 jump he and his partner Tess May abandon the rental market altogether by downsizing into an apartment further out at any given moment we can just be uprooted and moved out or rental increases can go up a significant amount and it's it's a shame because these are out this is our home inner city Sydney renter Sophie Savile offered to pay 20 a week more than the asking price to secure her apartment a year ago once we got it I was yeah over the moon obviously and I didn't have to be out there in the bin Fire or the rental market [Music] but eight months into her 12-month lease she was given notice that her rent would go up 25 if she wanted to renew we're also quite shocked because had offered more we didn't expect such a massive increase but we were able to negotiate to 850 which is still a 20 increase so this is my bedroom to cover that they had to find a third person to move into what was meant to be a two-tenant household in many ways like the situation we have is not great we've made it work for us and we're really fortunate that we've made it work for us but also we've done it kind of like illegally [Music] akshat Seth is also renting in the inner city but today he's looking for cheaper options in Western Sydney [Music] it's not a bad house it's a reason does small bedrooms his days off are filled with house inspections after he received notice of a 26 rent increase this is listed at about 700 per week so I've got about four land up today and for the weekend we've got another 10. I think the rental market in Sydney at the moment is really chaotic net migration is set to increase by 400 000 people this financial year politicians are arguing about how the housing market will absorb the increase while migrants like akshat are already struggling to find affordable properties it wasn't this bad even a couple of years ago it's only in the last year year and a half where the situation has become this uh this bad back to property number eight this was literally probably at the round two year mark on the other side of the market investor Eddie delene is building a rental Empire I got very passionate about property investing from an extremely young age believe it or not I actually grew up with a single mother on a pension in Housing Commission so literally started from the bottom my house is duplexes townhouses started off with two bedroom unit and so I own 78 properties in total and I rent out 77 properties that are rented for less than what I could be getting the 31 year old says he has put up rents by 10 to 15 percent on average in the last year he says he could charge more but doesn't want to risk vacancies and the interest rate Rises haven't put pressure on him so far if those interest rate increases though haven't affected you why put rents up so with the rents like again like these rents mainly have only gone up because the property went vacant like all those ones when the property went vacant as an example they like the market was already at that price point it's a family of six people because it's obviously a six bedroom house he's also put the rent up on existing tenants in properties like this one which has gone up by eighty dollars a week you could potentially put like a duplex on it or redevelop it down the track we are right now in Western Sydney in South Wentworth the all around like Parramatta uh picked up this property about five years ago rented at 730 dollars per week that's less than what I could be getting as well but they're really good tenants so I want to keep them happy and keep them in there and have a win-win situation for everybody just how much landlords should be able to raise rent has become a political battle with a fully fledged rental crisis gripping millions of people around the country who need help right now the greens are pushing for rent freezes but the federal labor government says that's not a matter for the Commonwealth one of the things that I won't do won't do is promise absolute pixie dust New South Wales Premier Chris mins has ruled out rent freezes or caps on increases every beard of international research and most economists agree that if you pursue that and do it at scale you'll put massive pressure on Supply the premier has ordered ministers to urgently identify land that can be rezoned for housing but as governments look for long-term policy Solutions renters say they need interventions now it's got to be something they have to do because the pressure is like it's mounting and there seems to be no way out

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 149,795

Keywords: abc news, australian news, abc news indepth, documentaries, long-form journalism, abc 730, 730, rental, rental housing, sydney, new south wales, rental market, property, tenants, landlords

Id: PtgfI3ZhLaw

Length: 7min 28sec (448 seconds)

Published: Tue May 23 2023