The rental crisis has led to a university student couch surfing

A young university student who was willing to pay a year’s rent in advance and had a great rental history found herself homeless due to a ‘feral’ and increasingly common problem.

A young international university student with enough savings to pay one year’s rent in advance has been left homeless due to Australia’s brutal rental crisis.

Izzy Sanderson, 22, has been forced to couch surf at friend’s homes in Sydney for the last fortnight while frantically applying for a place to live.

The university student, who is based in Sydney while completing an arts degree, became homeless after moving out of her student acommodation and flying home to the UK for Christmas.

She packed all her belongings in her car and had a plan with three mates to find a new home in the New Year – it did not go as planned.

Izzy Saunderson is a university student who couldn’t find a place to rent Source: Supplied

Izzy was constantly getting beaten for places by full-time workers. Source: Supplied

When she returned in January, her potential housemates had yet to secure a place over the Christmas break despite looking everywhere in Sydney’s CBD. So, Izzy found herself without a place to live.

Izzy revealed she had to rely on the kindness of friends in a foreign country while she tried to find a roof to keep over her head.

“When I returned to Australia, I had to sleep on friends’ sofas,” she told news.com.au.

“I’m an international student, so there’s a limit to how many hours I can work a week, but my late grandmother agreed to cover my rent while I was studying, so I felt like I was a good candidate still.”

Although Izzy has over four years’ worth of rental history, she still wasn’t having any luck in such an oversaturated market.

She went to over four viewings daily and found the average inspection attracted about 30 other potential tenants.

For over two weeks she applied for plenty of rentals without any secure bites.

Property manager Antonio Mesiti is currently in the rental market trenches and admits constantly disappointing people like Izzy is hard but the market is very harsh.

Mr Mesiti explained that while it is always busy at the beginning of the year, this is something else: “It is always feral in January and February, this is a little crazier, and current tenants are staying put,” he explained.

Plus Mr Mesiti agrees it doesn’t help that droves of people are turning up for every inspection.

“It is tough out there,” he said. “There’s not enough quality supply for the people looking. Everything we list moves quickly, and open houses are so busy.”

Ultimately two of Izzy’s mates opted to stay with family because they found the rental market to be too expensive and overwhelming, leaving Izzy and her friend tasked with finding a two-bedroom place together.

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While Mr Mesiti believes that landlords aren’t anti-university students, he added: “As long as your affordability checks line up, that’s a bigger priority so we can place sustainable tenancies.”

Izzy felt like being a uni student automatically meant she wasn’t the most desirable candidate in an already incredibly competitive rental market, and that reality made her worried.

“I wasn’t going to beat young couples with steady jobs,” she said. “It felt like I would never be chosen even if I had the best application. A couple of real estate agents told me they liked me as an applicant, but the landlord had gone with another tenant.”

Izzy found it a struggle to find a place to rent. Source: Supplied

Izzy is paying almost $400 a week in Sydney now. Source: Supplied

While Izzy had dealt with looking for a place before in the UK during a rental crisis, she found the process easier because in her experience the person who usually got the place was the first one to show up at an inspection.

Whereas in Australia no matter what time she arrived to see a property, it felt like it came down to her application not her eagerness or her ability to build relationships with agents.

Her reprieve happened on Friday when an agent took pity on her and offered to show her a place that wasn’t on the market yet.

Izzy accepted it on the spot even though it isn’t her dream place.

“I don’t know how long it would have taken otherwise, it isn’t perfect, but we realised we weren’t going to be able to be picky,” she said.

Plus, the two bedroom place didn’t come cheap, costing a total of $790 and individually Izzy needs to fork out $395 a week.

Even with the recent good news, Izzy’s still worried something will go wrong.

“I’m scared it’s going to fall through. I can’t accept it until I step in the door with the keys.”