Labor’s rent check move a ‘disappointing distraction’
A new move from the NSW government aimed at helping renters find a place they can afford falls short of the mark.
The recently launched NSW Rent Check website, described as making it easier for renters to work out whether the rent they’re being asked to pay is fair, is a disappointing distraction.
Rent Check has been developed by the NSW rental commissioner Trina Jones to provide current data on rents across metropolitan suburbs and in regional locations.
But it does not really do that for the one-in-three people in NSW who are renters.
The pretext of the government’s exercise was that existing online property websites only “paint a picture of the rental market” seemingly critical because they also include what were the advertised rent prices rather than just the achieved.
MORE: Home trick nets dad extra $426k a year
Rent Check only uses officially lodged rental bond data from the past three months.
Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading, Anoulack Chanthivong, suggests Rent Check provides “a more accurate and comprehensive breakdown of market prices”.
“The tool provides a realistic indication of rent prices,” Chanthivong would have users believe.
Users enter a postcode and answer whether it is a unit or house, plus inputting only how many bedrooms it has, but no other characteristics.
The results give an expansive median market rental range.
A free-to-use tool, Rent Check is based on data from the NSW government’s long established Rent Report which was handy for academic studies but not tenant reactions. Unfortunately the data does not distinguish between suburbs in the same postcode.
MORE: ‘Danger’ suburbs where homeowners are losing money
So renters are being advised that Airds (postcode 2560) is the same as Campbelltown (2560) and Ruse (2560). All are advised as having a $520 to $600 a week median rental range.
Along with live rental listings, informed renters searching the realestate.com.au website would glean the three bedroom houses have rented at $520 at Airds, $540 at Campbelltown and $555 at Ruse based on data over the past year.
Rent Check suggests all the suburbs in the 2011 postcode have the same $895 to $1205 weekly median rent range for its two bedroom apartments. But a search at realestate.com.au would have renters quickly ascertaining that, in the real world, Rushcutters Bay sits at $900 a week, while Woolloomooloo is at $1100.
MORE: Isla Fisher’s post-divorce setback
Regional renters are being told that Kiama is the same as Jamberoo; that Hyams Beach is the same as Old Erowal Bay and that Albury is the same as Ettamogah.
The Rent Check website data goes missing at the all-important affordable market. Studios are not included despite this market having been included in the Rent Report with its obvious presence in the inner city and inner west localities.
MORE: Break-ups that led to stars’ dwindling empires
It is proffered that there was not enough available data for bedsitters, but that conclusion came because the technology behind Rent Check is a one-click-fits-all simplification.
Rent Check is available at nsw.gov.au/rent-check
Originally published as Labor’s rent check move a ‘disappointing distraction’