Australia’s brutal rental crisis is spreading, with unaffordable areas moving from the cities to regional parts of the country. Source: News.com.au.
Perth and regional Australia’s affordability have plummeted in the past 12 months, fresh figures from National Shelter, SGS Economics and Planning, and Housing All Australia show.
SGS Economics Planning principal Ellen Witte told NewsWire that rental affordability was no longer an issue for traditional inner city suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne.
“Over the years rental affordability was just in the cities, but as time went on and the crisis deepened we saw this spread to the suburbs, outer suburbs and now very regional areas,” she said.
Ms Witte said regional areas were suffering as city dwellers left for cheaper accommodation.
“While the number of people who have left the cities might not be a big number, for a regional town it has really changed their rental market,” she said.
“People can easily work remotely and what you see is people from the cities take their urban incomes and purchasing powers to the regions so they can afford higher rents, which pushes up the prices while also creating more demand for housing in regional areas.”
While rural and regional Australia struggle, it is a mixed picture for the cities.
Sydney’s affordability improved by 1 per cent and Canberra 4 per cent while remaining steady in Melbourne and Adelaide.
Hobart, Brisbane and Perth declined by 1, 2 and 4 per cent respectively.
Despite affordability in many urban areas stabilising, the report found rents remained unaffordable in large swathes of the nation, even for full-time staff.
A full-time hospitality worker has to spend more than 30 per cent of their income on rent in most capitals and rest-of-state areas.
The report said Australia needed to build 44,500 social and affordable homes each year for the next two decades to solve the housing issue.
FULL STORY
Unaffordable rents no longer just a city problem as crisis engulfs regions (By Cameron MIcallef, News.com.au)
