Brisbane rates: Residents bracing for ‘nasty surprise’ ahead of Council Budget
Homeowners in Brisbane who rent their properties on short-stay sites like Airbnb have been warned they will soon pay ‘significantly’ higher rates as the city moves to ease a rental crisis. It comes amid expectations of a broader rates rise in today’s Budget. POLL
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Brisbane’s Lord Mayor has delivered a sharp ultimatum to city homeowners who rent their properties on short-stay accommodation sites - return them to the broader rental market, or face ‘significantly higher rates’.
Adrian Schrinner said cracking down on “mini-hotels” would help ease the crisis facing renters.
Mr Schrinner also announced a one-off payment of $1000 for homeowners who have been unable to return to their properties after the flooding emergency earlier this year.
It comes ahead of today’s city Budget, with all property owners bracing for a sharp rates increase after Gold Coast homeowners were on Tuesday slugged with the biggest hike in more than a decade.
The Gold Coast City Council approved a 4.3 per cent net increase in rates and charges for 2022-23, but Brisbane’s Adrian Schrinner this morning said a rates rise in Brisbane would not be that big.
Mr Schrinner has already warned residents that Wednesday’s Brisbane City Council budget would include a rates rise, which will add further pain to homeowners struggling to keep up with soaring cost of living pressures after interest rates rose again last week.
This morning, Mr Schrinner announced “significantly higher rates” on landlords who have “turned homes into mini hotels,” in a bold bid to tackle a shortage of Brisbane rental homes.
Mr Schrinner said that “we’re going to give landlords who’ve turned homes into mini hotels using websites like Airbnb and Stayz a choice between returning these properties to the long-term rental market or face significantly higher rates.”
He said the policy, to be officially unveiled in the Budget, will help “ease the chronic shortage of rental homes across Brisbane.”
“What we see is renters being affected with rents going up significantly, and then those that want to get a rental property are having real difficulty,” Mr Schrinner told the ABC.
“If owners have these properties in the market for a short term, that is their choice, but what they’ll be facing now is a 50 per cent increase in their rates.”
“We’re excluding (those that rent out) individual rooms. This is about people who rent out the whole house.”
The Lord Mayor said that people relocating from interstate and families displaced by recent flooding had added pressure to an already swamped housing market.
Mr Schrinner also revealed that rates increases for Brisbane residents would be “significantly lower than the Gold Coast,” which saw an average increase of $160 a year.
On a more general rates rise, Mr Schrinner said council would be forced to pass on its cash constraints following the devastation of the February flood as well as the surging cost of goods and construction.
“The reality is we’re hearing from a lot of the councils around South East Queensland that they’re under significant financial pressure,” he told reporters last week.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate made similar concessions about the extraordinary economic pressures when handing down his budget, which he described as the toughest fiscal update since he was elected in 2012.
But the city’s rates rise was below inflation.
“This is the 11th consecutive year where our council has kept the average rates increase at, or below, CPI,’’ he said.
“Like small businesses and families, our City budget has been impacted by rising costs in materials and supply shortages.
“The last decade has seen CPI nationally remain low and we have pegged our annual rates increase accordingly. In 2022-23, CPI has spiked but we remain below CPI and that is positive news.”
The hike will equate to an extra $3.11 a week – or just over $160 a year – for ratepayers, while general rates will rise by 4.99 per cent, with water service and water consumption charges jumping 13.4 per cent and 5.7 per cent respectively.
Brisbane City Council’s opposition leader Jared Cassidy said a “severe rates hike is all but certain” in today’s (Wednesday) budget announcement.
“People are in for a nasty surprise,” he said, stressing “rates have almost doubled from an average of $993 per year to $1,780” since the LNP led the council.
“With the cost of living increasing and interest rates on the rise, a significant rates hike this year under the LNP will be utterly devastating for the people of Brisbane.”
Originally published as Brisbane rates: Residents bracing for ‘nasty surprise’ ahead of Council Budget
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