Opinion: Qld rental crisis worsens as deadbeat tenants call the shots
Blame the floods or influx of southerners, but Queensland’s rental crisis is also due to more and more landlords opting out because tenants are allowed to call all the shots, writes Kylie Lang.
Kylie Lang
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Queensland’s rental property shortage is a disgrace – and the State Government’s sweetheart deal with tenancy lobby groups will only exacerbate our soaring homelessness problem.
You can blame the 2022 floods, you can blame the influx of southerners when Covid-19 hit and our borders were yet to be slammed shut, and you can blame poor supply of building materials for new housing developments.
But Queensland’s record dearth of rentals is also because more and more landlords are opting out.
Who would own an investment property when tenants get to call the shots, they argue.
In October, more disincentives kicked in, including the abolition of “no pets” rules.
While these edicts might find favour with renters, they’re on the nose with landlords, who say their rights are being trampled.
Many are selling up – in a white-hot market, why the heck not? – and switching to shares as a comparatively hassle-free investment.
What this means for Queensland’s rental crisis is there will be even fewer properties available as more owner-occupiers buy in.
This is of absolutely no help to the growing number of earnest tenants battling homelessness, or the very real threat of it.
For every deadbeat who lets their pet defecate on the carpet, there are responsible renters who respect the properties they call home.
Kerri-Lee Hicks is a Gold Coast mother of three children – all with disabilities, one chronic – and she’s in the fight of her life to keep a roof over their heads.
Mrs Hicks and husband Michael, a store manager, have rented the same Pimpama home for more than 12 years, without incident. They and their family – which included a German Shepherd therapy dog until it died in January – are model tenants.
But come April’s end, their landlord is withdrawing the property from the rental market and renovating it.
Mrs Hicks, 37, says it has been a “full-time job” these past three months to find a new home.
She has received more than 50 knock backs – and as many no replies – to applications, this week forcing her to put away her phone for a few hours because she “couldn’t handle another rejection”.
“I am super resilient, emotionally and mentally,” Mrs Hicks says, “but this has nearly broken me.”
Her sons’ medical conditions mean they need stability and routine but instead, the family is set for chaos.
If there’s no joy in the next few weeks, Mr Hicks will find a bed in a mate’s house near his Nerang workplace, while his wife will take their high-needs kids to her father’s place in Adelaide … until the market sorts itself out. They could be there for some time.
Mrs Hicks says real estate agents have told her they’re receiving more than 100 applications for any given property but only have time to sift through the first 20.
Her single income family is also competing for four-bedroom homes with people who have six full-time salaries.
That’s right, three couples are homesharing in yet another sign of the severity of this crisis. Mrs Hicks, who acknowledges there are people far worse off than she is, believes the State Government is not doing enough to help.
“Trying to navigate support services when facing homelessness is like a spider web, there’s no starting point, you have to hope for the best but expect you’ll get trapped,” she says.
The Hicks family has been assisted by the STARH Project, which offers early intervention from homelessness, with the offer to pay part of their removal costs.
Naturally enough, they need somewhere to move in the first instance.
“Targeted assistance is needed and the Government should be providing it,” Mrs Hicks says.
“It’s fine for them to say we can have pets in our rental property but when there’s no property to go to, even with a perfect track record like ours, then something’s really wrong.”
You can say that again.
Landlords bowing out of the game is but one problem demanding urgent attention as the housing shortage bites harder and more Queenslanders face the unthinkable.
LOVE
* Signs of normality returning to Queensland, with the cracking Birdsville Races on tomorrow after a two-year hiatus. The Sunday Mail Transurban Bridge to Brisbane is also back after a 2020 Covid-19 blip, with early-bird registrations for the August 28 event opening tomorrow
* Immanuel College on the Sunshine Coast installing vape detectors in bathrooms, a move being considered by other schools which understand what Education Minister Grace Grace doesn’t. Vaping is a much bigger problem than puffing fags in her day.
LOATHE
* Taxpayers unwittingly forking out $110,000 to change Translink’s logo and branding. Echoes of the $300,000-plus renaming of Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital that we never needed or requested.
* The constant childish taunts between the Commonwealth and State governments over flood relief measures. Could someone in One William Street focus on real issues? How about fixing the root cause and being better prepared to deal with nature’s wrath? We want solutions, not slanging matches.
Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail
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