Toowoomba families left out as rental market contracts

Families crammed into small homes or bunking with relatives have become commonplace as the supply of rental homes dries up. 

Tiana Lynch and partner Andrew Claxton and their three children face an uncertain future as they struggle to find a rental property.

Tiana Lynch, her partner Andrew Claxton and their three children under five have been crammed into a single room at a relative’s house for nearly three months.

Mr Claxton holds down a good-paying job, they have “perfect” financials and their rental history is excellent — by most criteria, they would be model tenants.

Yet after submitting hundreds of applications since November they cannot get a rental in Toowoomba.

The experience of constantly being rejected for homes has destroyed their confidence in the system.

“There have been times where the real estates say everything is perfect, but we don’t get it,” Ms Lynch said.

“I think we’re at the point where we’ve nearly given up, but we know we can’t.”

The family’s situation is one of hundreds of others across Toowoomba right now, with the city in the grip of a rental vacancy “crisis” according to experts.

Currently dozens of viable applicants are trying to nab a single property, and the result has left the city’s vacancy rate at a record low of 0.6 per cent.

Real Estate Institute of Queensland’s Toowoomba chair Katie Knight, who is also the principal at Re/Max Success, said the competition for rentals had not improved in six months.

“The inquiry level might be higher than what’s reported, because we had 500 applications in one month and I think there were 35-40 rented out,” she said.

“You can see how disproportionate it is between the demand and the ultimate supply of properties, and that’s continuing at the moment.

“We’ve got about 200 applications at the moment across 19 properties.”

The shortage is also causing headaches for existing tenants, who face rent hikes of nearly 10 per cent.

CoreLogic’s head of research Tim Lawless, who was the keynote speaker at an industry function titled Toowoomba’s Rental Crisis on May 11, said the factors behind the current crunch were multifaceted.

“We’re seeing Toowoomba rents rising by about eight to nine per cent per annum at the moment,” he said.

“We have got to the stage where we’ve had relatively low levels of investment, at a time where we seeing a surge in rental demand through increased population growth.

“In that sense, we’re seeing a rental shortage that’s pushing up rental prices and putting upward pressure on actual renters trying to get into the market.”

Mr Lawless said there was no easy fix to the problem, but an increase in investors and release of more developable land would be something.

“Even though we’re seeing rental yields in Toowoomba well above the national average – they’re up around 5.5 per cent in gross terms – we haven’t seen enough to attract a lot of investment into the Toowoomba marketplace, although that may be starting to change,” he said.

“Attracting more investors (is one solution) — we estimate only 30 per cent of properties in Toowoomba would be investment-owned or available for rent.

“The other side of it would be introducing more supply, and that’s more complex.

“It involves encouraging more development of land that’s already available, but also ensuring the town plan and zoning restrictions are right, in the sense they allow for some densification.”

None of these will come fast enough to help Ms Lynch and her family, who continue to hold their breaths.

“The end date of us living here is coming, and we’re not sure when we’re going to go next,” she said.

Originally published as Toowoomba families left out as rental market contracts