Aussie rental crisis worsens with cities named as worst places to live

There’s never been a worse time to rent in Australia. These are the places you really want to avoid, according to a new report.

There has never been a worse time to rent in Australia, particularly if you’re on a low income, according to a damning new report.

Rental rates compared to average income haven’t ever been as dire as they are now in all the years the annual Rental Affordability Index (RAI) first started analysing the state of the housing market.

The Covid-19 exodus out of cities has resulted in huge jumps in rent prices in regional areas where locals can’t hope to compete with cashed up city workers.

Rent affordability in Perth, Hobart, Adelaide and Brisbane has decreased drastically in the last year.

Although prices in the ACT and Greater Sydney remained relatively stable, they are still the least affordable places to rent in the entire country for people on lacking incomes.

In fact, only one place in the whole of Australia was cheap enough for low-income earners such as pensioners, people on Jobseeker and single part-time working parents.

Regional South Australia is the only area where they can comfortably stay at a rental without breaking the bank.

In Canberra, someone on JobSeeker must spend 113 per cent of their money on rent while over in Sydney, they must fork out 110 per cent of their income.

That’s “impossible” according to the report’s lead author Ellen Witte.

“It’s just gone mad,” she told news.com.au.

The greener, the better. Picture: RAI

The index has been compiled every year in partnership with National Shelter, SGS Economics & Planning, the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Beyond Bank Australia since 2015.

Ms Witte said in many respects the 2021 report was the worst outlook on rental affordability so far as the housing crisis, which had already been simmering for years, was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The last year has been the most extreme, lots of movement, especially people moving out of lockdown,” she said.

“In the past if you were on low income you could always move somewhere else. What we see now is it [the higher rates] has moved to the regional areas now.

“A lot of people are priced out of the market.”

Normally, between 4000 and 6000 people migrate to regional Australia every quarter.

However, from June 2020 to March 2021, net migration peaked at 12,000 people for every three months, ABS data shows.

Jindabyne, for instance, in rural NSW, saw its rent increase by 50 per cent while Tweed Heads jumped by 30 per cent.

The regional Victorian towns of Bendigo and Ballarat were also “deteriorating” in terms of rent affordability, according to Ms Witte.

Regional areas such as Wollongong and the Gold and Sunshine Coasts are now unaffordable for households earning a salary of less than $80,000.

Ms Witte said one of the worst cases she’d seen was a single mum on the Gold Coast with four kids under the age of eight whose landlord demanded the rent go up from $460 to $520.

News.com.au has previously reported on the Queensland rent crisis which left single mums homeless.

Rents are higher than they’ve ever been.

Although it’s mostly people from capital cities migrating to the regions, large cities didn’t fare much better either on the rental index.

The research found that Hobart remains the least affordable city to rent in in Australia whether your income is high or low, with the average household earning $67,900 and having to give 34 per cent of that to their landlords.

This is well beyond the absolute maximum recommended of paying 30 per cent of your income for rent, putting at risk the ability to afford other primary needs such as food, medical care, heating or cooling, or children’s education.

Greater Adelaide is the next least affordable city, where households pay 27 per cent of their income on rent.

Greater Perth’s affordability dropped the most out of any city, by 14 per cent, a bigger jump than seen in cities like Brisbane and Hobart.

Melbourne is actually cheaper than it was pre-pandemic, improving 7.3 per cent, most likely because after enduring six lockdowns some residents are looking elsewhere to live.