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Articles on Rental market

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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

As simple as finding a job? Getting people out of social housing is much more complex than that

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. Shutterstock

Looking to rent a home? 6 things that will help or hinder you

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. shutterstock.com

City share-house rents eat up most of Newstart, leaving less than $100 a week to live on

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.
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

Informal and illegal housing on the rise as our cities fail to offer affordable places to live

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. (Shutterstock)

Airbnb’s adverse impact on urban housing markets

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.
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

Who wins and who loses when platforms like Airbnb disrupt housing? And how do you regulate it?

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.
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

Rents, not prices, are best to assess housing supply and demand

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.
It’s not easy to tell, but about a quarter of Airbnb properties in Sydney are essentially commercial letting operations. paul/Flickr

Airbnb regulation needs to distinguish between sharing and plain old commercial letting

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

Airbnb: who’s in, who’s out, and what this tells us about rental impacts in Sydney and Melbourne

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 old pathways to home ownership have been displaced by more uncertain routes that waver between owning and renting. Glenn Hunt/AAP

Home ownership foundations are being shaken, and the impacts will be felt far and wide

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.
Nurses who care for people in the city can’t afford a property anywhere near their place of work. didesign021/Shutterstock

Key workers like nurses and teachers are being squeezed out of Sydney. This is what we can do about it

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.
“Looking for one girl to share a master room with another 3 girls.” Screenshot from Gumtree ad, August 19 2017, 11:58

Room sharing is the new flat sharing

City living costs are driving people to organise themselves to share a room with strangers. These precarious living arrangements hardly qualify as a home.

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