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Renting

This Month

Simonelle Mody is a 25-year old finance professional living in a UKO co-living space in Paddington.

Can an ‘upmarket boarding house’ solve Sydney’s housing problem?

Hotel Capital Partners is acquiring the former Quest Potts Point hotel and turning it into short-term rental housing to capitalise on inner-city housing shortages.

  • Campbell Kwan
An artist’s impression of a proposal to replace what developer Fortis calls an “ageing residential flat building” in Elizabeth Bay with high-end apartments.

Elizabeth Bay luxury tower development rejected

The Rolling Stones made a surprise appearance in a judgment backing residents in a fight with developer Fortis about housing needs.

  • Michael Bleby
The common room of a build-to-rent apartment building in Melbourne. Build-to-rent could help deliver 80,000 new homes within a decade.

Game changer or sellout? The election fight over the future of housing

Labor says build-to-rent changes will turbocharge apartment construction. The Coalition says it just kicks the problem along. Get ready for one of the big election battles.

  • Tom McIlroy

November

Kshitiz (Kay) Srivastava pays $375 a week for his room with en suite in a private student residential complex in the heart of Adelaide.

Impact on rent of foreign student caps is price of a coffee: report

The government says too many international students is putting pressure on the rental market. New analysis reveals student caps will push rents down – by $5 a week

  • Julie Hare

October

After increasing steadily for decades thanks to the Baby Boomers, participation in property investment has started to wane as regulators tighten the screws on lending.

Australia has passed peak property investor

For many around the country, especially Baby Boomers, property investing is a national pastime. But if you look closely, landlord numbers are declining.

  • Michael Read
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The rate of price growth is already slowing, even in the strongest markets.

‘Be careful what you wish for’ in property tax reform

Any benefit from falling house prices by curbing investor concessions may be short-lived. And there would be a price to pay, say property experts.

  • Nick Lenaghan
Some state governments are charging higher taxes and limiting rent increases.

For every $1 increase on loan repayments, rents go up 1¢: RBA

Analysing 13 years of tax returns from 2006-07 to 2018-19, the RBA found that for every $1 increase in interest repayments, investors raised rents by just 1¢.

  • Michael Read

It turns out Philip Lowe was right about finding a flatmate

Higher housing costs are forcing young people to stay at home with their parents and leading households to rent out spare rooms, RBA chief economist Sarah Hunter says.

  • Michael Read
Tax policy restrictions on housing investors would be a negative for investors in Westpac and CBA, says Citi.

Negative gearing changes would be a drag on bank stocks: analysts

Citi examined restrictions on housing investor tax settings in New Zealand, and Australia in the 1980s, and found they helped rents go up.

  • James Eyers

September

Moving on. Jose Pineda has been priced out of Kingsford.

Jose was priced out of his inner-city home. So were 16,000 others

KPMG data shows rising costs are squeezing out much-needed workers from Sydney and Melbourne’s most sought-after suburbs.

  • Campbell Kwan

August

Nothing says union power like a multimillion-dollar five bedroom home with a “butler’s pantry”.

Union sells boss’ subsidised McMansion

The Electrical Trades Union is selling a five-bedroom McMansion that once housed its national boss while stalling housing developments across Sydney.

  • Nick Bonyhady
New Eureaka CEO Simon Owen.

Decline in home ownership a boon for retirement operator Eureka

The company’s new chief executive, Simon Owen, says a growing number of retirees don’t have the real estate to buy into more expensive homes.

  • Michael Bleby
One of the goals of rentvesting is to cash in on the capital gain of the investment property and use it to purchase your dream home.

The maths justifying rentvesting has changed. Here are the numbers

It’s a popular strategy for building wealth but how does rentvesting stack up after 13 rate rises?

  • Kelly Kennedy
Strata title reform is on the agenda for WA.

Build-to-rent plan risks ‘repelling investors’

Labor has been warned to redesign key elements of its plan to boost affordable rental stock around Australia.

  • Tom McIlroy and Campbell Kwan

Deals in build-to-rent market ready for lift-off, says US giant

Build-to-rent housing is potentially a big contributor in efforts to plug the country’s chronic housing shortfall which has sent rents skyrocketing.

  • Nick Lenaghan
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San Francisco to ban rent-setting software amid gouging worry

The ban opens a new front in a long-running controversy over the role of software in setting rents as an affordability crisis worsens in many American cities.

  • Rya Jetha

July

Sydney-based investor Rich Harvey said the proposed eviction rule “goes a bit too far against landlords like me.”

NSW’s eviction rules will trigger landlord ‘exodus’

The NSW government’s proposed ban on evicting tenants without reasonable grounds will spark landlords’ exodus and deprive the state of billions of dollars in investments in the rental sector, property investors warn.

  • Nila Sweeney
NSW Premier Chris Minns at a Labor Party conference in Sydney on Sunday,

NSW Premier Chris Minns dodges a fight over Palestine

The Labor leader promised new protections for renters and gig-economy workers at the party’s first conference in power in NSW after 12 years.

  • Updated
  • Aaron Patrick
Axiom Construction’s general manager Claire Perham.

How building codes are crunching affordability

Energy efficiency demands and stringent accessibility rules are increasing the cost of building homes by tens of thousands of dollars.

  • James Hall
Happy holidays for some.

Tenerife waiters forced to live in tents amid tourist-driven property boom

Low-paid service workers who are vital to the tourism industry are being squeezed out of the market because of the boom in holiday rentals. 

  • James Badcock

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/renting-618