Sydney rental crisis: tenants hit with $700 rent rise | Video
Tenants at wits’ end with Sydney’s rental market are taking to social media in droves to call out outrageous rent increases and dodgy apartments.
NSW
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Tenants are taking to TikTok to vent their frustration at Sydney’s rental market as landlords increase rents by hundreds of dollars.
One TikTok user, whose goes by the handle Bree, posted a video of a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in Rosebery which had been advertised for $575 a week two years ago. The landlord was now asking for $1200 a week.
“$1200 a week for the 87 square metre apartment in Rosebery, what do you mean?” Bree said in her post.
“I know it’s not a mistake, it’s just f**ked.”
The video attracted over 75,000 views and is only one of many posted by Sydneysiders worried they will find themselves homeless.
After Chantelle Schmidt was told by her landlord her rent would be going up by $700 a fortnight and there was no room to negotiate, the Sydney woman took to TikTok to vent her frustration.
Her video has attracted over 500,000 views.
In the video Ms Schmidt showed an email she had received in which her real estate agent said her rent would be increasing from $1,900 per fortnight to $2,600.
She explains as she is on a rolling monthly lease and there is no limit to how much the landlord can increase the rent.
In a letter to her agent she tried to negotiate the price.
“That’s a considerable and confronting increase for a three-bedroom house, shaking out to be an extra $230 per room,” she wrote
“We’d love to come to a solution that reflects both the current market and the current financial pressure that inflation is having on us tenants.”
In response the agent said they would be simply able to achieve the increased amount if the property were to be re-advertised.
After putting in a counter offer of an increase of $200 per fortnight, Ms Schmidt said her agent replied an hour later rejecting the offer.
“I have spoken to the landlord and unfortunately he was very stern about not negotiating the increase,” the response said.
“The rent has been quite cheap for quite some time and we are confident that we could relet the property at the increased amount.”
These are further examples of the rental crisis gripping Sydney, which has seen renters being forced to accept subpar living arrangements.
Sydney landlords have been taking full advantage of desperate renters in recent months by bumping up rental prices to a fee that doesn’t appear to match the property’s value.
A lack of new properties and an influx of national and international migrants has continued to skyrocket the city’s rental crisis, allowing landlords to bump up rents.
Leo Patterson Ross from the Tenants Union of NSW said a combination of Sydney’s competitive market and the nature of desperate buyers allows landlords to increase the rent.
“We have an essential service that’s been run as a competitive process and people are being pressured into paying more and more and sacrificing quality, location and size.
“We are seeing more and more places coming on the market needing more repair, with significant issues that you wouldn’t see in a sensible system.”
This comes months after the NSW Government banned real estate agents from asking renters to bid higher than a property’s listing price.
Despite the ban renters are still facing unrealistic listing prices.
Long queues for housing inspections and limited availability of properties has seen tenants under pressure to accept conditions that are below minimum standards.
One in ten households across Western Sydney are suffering from acute housing stress compounded by overcrowding and unaffordable rents.
The Sydney median for house rent is currently $630 per week.
According to data from UNSW City Futures Research Centre released in January, 17.8 per cent of households in Fairfield have what is defined as “unmet need”.
This includes homelessness, overcrowding or being forced to spend more than 30 per cent of income on rent.
Ten per cent of Parramatta households and 15.5 per cent in Bankstown are facing severe housing stress.
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