Dalby renters left stranded amid one fo the lowest rental vacancy rates in Australia

Renters in a regional town three hours west of Brisbane are being left out in the cold with only three available homes in a town of 13,000. Find out more here.

One of three houses available to rent in Dalby as of July 9, 2024.

The rental squeeze is so tight across regional Queensland that three hours west of Brisbane in the town of Dalby, there’s a handful of homes listed for rent - one of them a four bedroom property for $900 per week.

With a population of about 13,000, Dalby is considered a growing regional area in Queensland but with one of the country’s lowest rental vacancy rates of 0.1 per cent.

In the last few weeks, the Western Downs town has been earmarked by depreciation experts Washington Brown and property analysis firm Hotspottingas a place for savvy investors to scoop up cheap properties with guaranteed rental returns.

The three homes listed for rent include a four bedroom, one bathroom home for $550, two bedroom one bathroom for $355, and a one bedroom one bathroom home with price available upon request.

Just a week prior they were advertising a property for a whopping $900 a week which has now been snapped up.

According to an Elders real estate agent, rental properties were only on the market for an average of 13 days before being taken.

As of July 9 they said they only had one available property for rent.

“There is just limited stock of rentals at this minute as most properties that are being purchased are by owner occupiers,” Elders Real Estate agent Jessi King said.

As vacancies near zero, rents have also risen 24 per cent in the past 12 months, with the median rental yield increasing from 6.6 per cent to 7.2 per cent in the past three months.

Property values have also soared, with the median house price up 15 per cent to $350,000 over the past year.

With such low vacancy rates the rental cost increases have priced out many families whose rent is over 30 per cent of their income.

Bowenville reserve homeless

This includes the Plant family who were forced out of their rental property earlier this year and into tents at Bowenville Reserve.

The couple and their two children became homeless after their rental property they had been living in for close to 10 months was sold out from underneath them and finding another property to lease in Australia’s tightest rental market - of 0.1 per cent - proved impossible.

Margaret, Allen and their boys are a part of a growing community of about a dozen people who are sleeping rough in tents dotted throughout Bowenville Reserve 32km east of Dalby, and of 20,000 across Queensland who are being forced to the streets due to the rising cost of living and lack of affordable rentals.

“The owner sold the house we were living in and we couldn’t find another one for us, this is the first time we’ve ever been homeless,” Margret Plant said.

“It’s been eye opening, there’s lots of things we’ve had to learn.”

Allen said he had been making efforts to find his family a home leaving notes in mailboxes in Bell, Kingaroy, Toowoomba and Pittsworth but to no avail.

“There is just nothing in our price range at the moment,” he said.

“For a four-bedroom house they want $750 a week and no one on benefits can afford the 30 per cent income to afford the place.

“It’s not easy sometimes you go see the owners and they don’t want to rent it out they just want it sitting there, I’ve come past about five or six of them and they just don’t want to rent it out.”

Originally published as Dalby renters left stranded amid one fo the lowest rental vacancy rates in Australia