‘Our renting system is in crisis’: Fifty QLD organisations urging Palaszczuk government to take action

Fifty Queensland organisations are calling for the state government to implement urgent rental reforms, as thousands of tenants are being hit with ‘unreasonable rent increases’ and face homelessness.

Fifty Queensland organisations across the housing and community sector are calling for the state government to implement urgent rental reforms, as thousands of tenants are being hit with ‘unreasonable rent increases’.

The alliance, made up of 14 primary members including Tenants Queensland, Queenslanders with Disability Network, Queensland Council of Social Service and Q Shelter launched their “Make Renting Fair in Queensland” campaign outside Queensland parliament on Wednesday, urging for rent rise caps.

“We’re calling for rent rises to be restricted to once per annum and for the consumer price index to be used as a guide for reasonable rent increase.” Tenants Queensland CEO Penny Carr said.

“Our renting system is in crisis.

“Over the first two months of 2023, Tenants Queensland took 160 calls from people regarding rent increases.

“On average, those increases were $100 per week or 23 per cent of what they were paying already.”

Renters are being forced to pay up or risk homelessness as vacancy rates hit lows not seen since2018

Ms Carr said Queensland laws should also prohibit any practice where a landlord or agent solicits or invites any offer of an amount of rent that is higher than the advertised amount for rent.

Rental bidding is illegal in Queensland but that does not stop a tenant making a higher offer to secure a property.

The Courier-Mail exclusively revealed on Saturday that bidding wars were breaking out in the strained rental market, with some tenants offering up to 12 months rent just to secure a property.

And despite rent bidding being banned, fed-up tenants say the practice is happening despite agents being forced to advertise a fixed price.

Renters inspecting rental property in Kedron- Picture: Richard Walker

Queensland has been in the grips of a rental crisis due to demand outstripping supply, with PropTrack recently revealing that Brisbane’s vacancy rate was now at its lowest since 2018.

The report revealed that Brisbane’s rental vacancy rate was now half the level seen before the pandemic, with the lack of supply tipped to put further upwards pressure on rents.

Which will come as more harrowing news for the more than 500,000 Queenslanders who identified as renters during the 2021 census.

Policy and Strategic Engagement Manager at Q Shelter, Jackson Hills said they were sympathetic towards landlords and property owners, but regulations, similar to those in other states, needed to be implemented to restrict the number of rent rises allowed in a year.

“We do recognise that property owners and investors have increased costs, so we have to find a reasonable way to manage increases,” he said.

“And one of the things that really concerns us is that we can increase rents twice a year in Queensland at the moment.

“Most other states and territories do that once a year, and also have a framework that has a reasonable approach to any increases around cost.”

Nurse Lucille and her truck driver husband and their kids were forced to live at a holiday park when their landlord decided to sell up and they couldn’t immediately find a home, which they did after several weeks of inspections. Picture: Matthew Poon.

Queensland has been one of the worst hit states in terms of rental prices according to the latest rental affordability index.

“Last year the National Rental Affordability Index, proved the Brisbane had the steepest decline in rental affordability of any capital city in the country,” Mr Hills said.

“In the last three weeks, we’ve also had the Community Housing Industry Association report tell us that Queensland has four regions in the top ten with unmet housing need in this country.”

Despite the Palaszczuk government’s $56 million pledge to build new housing,

QCOSS chief executive Aimee McVeigh said more needed to be done to provide safe, secure and affordable housing for the many tenants who were struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

“In addition to building more social housing, we need the Queensland Government to commit to making the private rental market fairer,” she said.

“And this does include better regulation around rent increases, we need our Residential Tenancy Act to include a cap to regulate how much rent can be increased by and we can look at other jurisdictions for an example, in the ACT, the rental cap is CPI plus 10 per cent.”

Shikera Maher and her family were forced to live in their car last year after being rejected from 270 applications. Picture: Brad Fleet

Queensland Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch said she welcomed input from stakeholders on the government’s ongoing rental law reforms.

She said the government’s stage 1 rental law reforms – which included making it easier to have pets and stronger eviction safeguards ­­– had made it fairer for renters.

“We are determined to build on our record with further stage 2 rental law reforms, with public consultation expected to commence on a range of proposals within months,” she said, adding the last state budget included $3.9bn for social housing.

“The Housing Summit we held last year resulted in millions of dollars in additional investment and extra support for thousands of households,” Ms Enoch said.

“At the upcoming Housing Roundtable we will look to unlock further opportunities to address the housing market pressures that Queensland, along with the rest of the country, is experiencing.”

On top of the thousands of tenants already struggling with rent hikes, thousands more low to medium-income households will be forced to pay more for their rent, with the termination of the National Rental Assistance Scheme, a Rudd-era initiative with the aim of reducing rental costs for low and medium income households.

“Our partner organisations have a number of renters that are really struggling with coming off the National Rental Affordability Scheme, 2500 Queenslanders are coming off on NRAS this year,” Mr Hills said.

“Most of those don’t qualify for public housing, so we need to find a rental system that’s fair and equitable across the board.”

REAL ESTATE: This heatmap shows just how low Brisbane rental vacancy rates are. Source: PropTrack.

The rental crisis has become so dire across parts of Queensland, that tenants are being forced to live in cars and holiday parks, while scammers have been targeting the desperate with fake listings.

And it is only likely to get worse with migration to Australia topped to soar past 300,000 this year.

Property Council of Australia chief executive Mike Zorbas, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Housing Affordability in Australia earlier today, advocated for the creation of a National Housing Supply and Affordability Council to address the worsening housing crisis.

“Federal government action on housing, including the Housing Accord, will only meet its aims if we address the growing national deficit of properly zoned land for housing,” Mr Zorbas told the committee.

“By the government’s own conservative numbers, we are more than 160,000 homes behind the national starting line over the next decade.

“The slowness and costliness of state planning systems in producing new homes, and property assets of any kind, adds significantly to the upwards cost pressure on housing across the spectrum – whether to-buy, or to-rent or key worker or social housing.”

Mr Zorbas said Australia will fail to meaningfully address the housing gap until we unlock a level investment playing field for build-to-rent (BTR) housing, purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) and retirement living communities.

“Currently there is a 30 per cent Australian Government withholding tax rate on overseas investment by pension, and public and private funds in build-to-rent housing, double the rate of tax on other property types like offices and logistics assets,” Mr Zorbas said.

“A 15 per cent managed investment trust (MIT) withholding tax rate would be comparable with the rate paid by our domestic superfunds who invest in US, UK and Canadian real estate markets,” he said.

Mr Zorbas said the HAFF and Supply Council should be passed swiftly to build on the good research and housing initiatives of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation.

“We strongly support the proposed National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. The Council should have an independent research capacity and be empowered to initiate an annual housing scorecard and incentive framework to improve planning and housing targets and delivery for each state and territory,” Mr Zorbas said.

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