The Qld areas bearing the brunt of rental, mortgage stress

Queensland’s housing crisis is ramping up, with new numbers showing just how painful life has become. SEE WORST-HIT AREAS

More than half the renters and mortgagees in a third of the 151 seats in the House of Representatives are under financial stress with the pain concentrated in the outer suburbs and regions.

The hip pocket electoral pain map prepared by mortgage specialists DFA also shows that in more than 20 seats, more than two-thirds of households either renting or paying off a mortgage are under financial stress.

DFA defines financial stress.as a household’s outgoings being greater than the money coming in each month, excluding big ticket items like holidays or a new car.

The findings come as the Albanese Government prepares to make housing a centrepiece of the May budget.

The most stressed mortgage seat in Queensland was Groom where 72 per cent of mortgagees were underwater followed by Blair with 64 per cent and Wright with 55 per cent and Kennedy with 51.

The state’s rental stress levels were much worse however.

The most rental stressed Queensland seat is Bowman where 88 per cent of households are under rental stress followed by Wright and Hinkler both on 85 per cent.

The other high rental stress seats in the state were Blair, Fadden, Moreton, Longman and Groom all of which had more 70 per cent of households under stress.

Martin North of DFA said the figures were deeply worrying.

“I think this is a bit of a disaster which has been building for a number of years but has been accelerating thanks to high inflation, high migration, lack of building supply and of course high interest rates in the context of real wage growth still lower than it was in 2010,” he said.

Mr North said the financial pressure on renters was worse at the moment than for people with mortgages.

“Even you go back 15 years the levels of stress for renters and mortgagees were very similar but it’s the stress for renters has really accelerated away since migration surged in 2022,” he said.

“Mortgage stress has gone from 32 per cent to 50 per cent across all households but rental stress is now at around 75 per cent.”

He said the crisis was forcing renters into making choices.

“Many renters are being forced to try and buy anything anywhere regardless of the quality or condition of the problem. There is a very large segment of the electorate that rents and is not currently being well-served by the major political parties,” he said.

“The Greens have worked that this is a disenfranchised group and they’re targeting them.”

He also said migration was likely to become a more prominent political issue going forward.

“You have to throttle back migration – the country cannot accommodate the current levels where GDP per capita continues to decline.”

The current thrust towards high rise construction and greater density was also deeply flawed because the cost per unit for high rise was much greater, they take longer to build and completely change local neighbourhoods where many people resist them.”

He also predicted interest rates would stay high well into next year meaning these levels of financial stress would be evident at the next election.

Former ALP strategist Kos Samaras who now runs pollster RedBridge said Australia’s mortgage and rental stress levels are regarded as some of the worst globally by the IMF.

“Anyone involved in politics who thinks that there will be no consequences from this at the next election is in for a rude shock,” he said.

“Not even an interest rate decline will alleviate the pain that will be felt at the ballot box as many have eaten into what savings they had before this affordability crisis and are now accumulating more personal debt to survive. Many will take years to recover from this.”

Originally published as The Qld areas bearing the brunt of rental, mortgage stress