Why is it so expensive to rent a home in Australia?

We often hear about new policies and programs that promise to improve the lives of Australians. But what about the issues that are too stigmatised, and seem to be taboo for policymakers to address? In this episode, we'll look at the skyrocketing costs of renting a property in Australia, which almost everyone agrees has put a lot of people under immense pressure.

A ‘Lease’ sign is seen outside a townhouse complex in Canberra, Friday, October 21, 2022. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch) NO ARCHIVING Source: AAP / LUKAS COCH/AAPIMAGE

The extent of those rental price increases have now been confirmed in two separate sets of numbers.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the price of the most expensive ten percent of rentals soared by ten percent over the past year, compared to seven percent for the cheapest ten percent of rental properties.

A survey by PropTrack also indicates that capital city rents have increased 13 percent year-on-year, to now sit at $520 per week, while regional rents were up by 4.5 percent.

None of this is news to Anglicare's Kasy Chambers.

Anglicare's annual rental snapshot has traced the declining affordability of private rentals for the past fourteen years.

She says Anglicare's latest survey shows just how bad things have become.

We found 45,895 separate individual listings in the private rental market across Australia. When we look at how many are affordable, we find that there's virtually nothing. So if you're a person on Youth Allowance, there was not one property that was affordable. Four of them would have been affordable for you if you're a single person on Jobseeker - and they were all rooms in sharehouses. It doesn't even get much better when we look at the age pension, which is the most generous of the Centrelink benefits. Only 0.4 of a percent were affordable.