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.
Morrison government assistant minister Luke Howarth argues that finding jobs for people in social housing will help free up dwellings for other people on the waiting list.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
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.
Prospective tenants need to make a good impression on the real estate agent who will decide who gets to rent the property.
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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.
Even when sharing a house, the average cost of rent means very little is left over from the Newstart allowance for food and living costs.
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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.
This shed has been illegally converted into housing. Two prams and three mattresses are visible.
Informal Accommodation and Vulnerable Households, author provided courtesy of Fairfield City Council
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.
Recent reports suggest Airbnb is having an impact on housing markets in cities popular with tourists.
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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.
Beds for rent: a shared room listed in Castlereagh Street, Sydney.
www.gumtree.com.au
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.
Airbnb’s likely impacts on people and their responses to it are related to their status as property owners, investors, prospective buyers or tenants.
Justin Lane/EPA
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.
People should be able to feel at home regardless of whether they own the place they live in.
Halfpoint/Shutterstock
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.
In Canberra you can build on land you don’t own.
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In Canberra you can build on land you don’t own, and it’s cheaper.
If you want to separate investor demand for property assets from demand for affordable housing, rent is a better indicator than property prices.
James Ross/AAP
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.
There’s never been enough funding to ensure affordable housing for those who need it.
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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.
It’s not easy to tell, but about a quarter of Airbnb properties in Sydney are essentially commercial letting operations.
paul/Flickr
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.
People are alarmed about Airbnb’s impacts, but these are far from uniform across the city.
Justin Lane/EPA
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.
The typical landlord is still the conventional “mum and dad” investor. However they are also mostly high-income and high-wealth households.
Paul Miller/AAP
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.