About 4% of Australian housing stock has been or is listed on Airbnb. The number of listings continues to grow, with a shift towards more professional managers of listed properties.
One in four Australian households now rent their homes in the private rental market. Flexibility and lifestyle are key reasons some choose to rent even if they can afford to buy a home.
Helping tenants find work supposedly creates a pathway into private rental housing, freeing up social housing for others. Private rental costs and the situations of many tenants make that unrealistic.
Two-thirds of tenants in Australia rent through an agent, so making a good impression on the agent matters. Certain characteristics count in tenants’ favour, but some factors are beyond their control.
Once rent is paid, having to live on only $14 a day doesn’t cover the costs of job seeking. The evidence of the need to increase Newstart and Rent Allowance is overwhelming.
Not all landlords see their properties purely as investments. As welfare reforms take hold, some are starting to take greater responsibility for the well-being of their tenants.
With Australian city rents too high for low-income earners, increasing numbers are forced to share houses or rooms or to live in options like ‘beds in sheds’ and other illegal dwellings.
It’s now clear that a single American company, Airbnb, has upended local housing markets, pushed rental prices skyward and could be contributing to poverty, especially in cities popular with tourists.
Living in shared rooms is on the rise, because it’s more affordable – and more profitable for landlords. But it’s also a more precarious, often overcrowded and poorly regulated form of housing.
Short-term letting via digital platforms benefits some in the market at the expense of others. Closer regulation might be needed in Melbourne and Sydney, where a permissive approach prevails.
Renting a house shouldn’t mean it’s not home. Until we change our meaning of home by separating it from ownership, we will never be able to “fix” Australia’s housing crisis.
Property prices have soared in the past decade, but much more modest increases in rent, with the exception of Sydney, suggest less of an imbalance of supply and demand for housing as a place to live.
Another affordable housing pact between the Commonwealth, states and territories came into effect this month. But with no new funding, the agreement may be different from predecessors in name only.
One problem with Airbnb is that it isn’t transparent about how many properties are truly ‘shared’ and how many are just part of a letting business. Regulators need to know that to manage the impacts.
The patterns of Airbnb listings in Australia’s biggest cities suggest impacts on rental housing are likely to be biggest in high-end areas that appeal to tourists. Low-income areas are less affected.
Increasingly insecure pathways to home ownership are not just a problem for property markets. The fallout is likely to hit retirement incomes, the welfare base, gender equity and the broader economy.
People on moderate incomes, including police and emergency workers, have been forced to seek housing on the city fringes, far from their places of work. But there are ways to reverse this trend.