CoreLogic’s February housing market report is another depressing read for Australian tenants, with rents continuing to rise sharply.
At the combined capital city level, house rents grew by 9.5% in the year to February, led by double-digit growth across Perth (12.4%), Adelaide (12.0%) and Brisbane (11.9%):
The situation is far worse for units, where rents climbed by 16.7% across Sydney, 15.6% across Brisbane, 13.9% across Melbourne, 12.8% across Adelaide, and 12.1% across Perth in the year to February:
Commenting on the results, CoreLogic’s director of research, Tim Lawless, warned that rental growth will remain red hot with the rapid return of migrants and international students.
“We aren’t seeing much in the way of a rental supply response”, Lawless said. “The latest data on private sector investment activity is still trending lower, and new unit commencements continue to fall after holding below the decade average since late 2018”.
“Additional federal funding for social and community housing isn’t in the budget until 2024, and even then, that will take some time to deliver”.
“Against this scenario of limited new rental supply, demand looks set to rise further based on the influx of overseas arrivals, amplified by an additional 35,000 permanent migrants relative to prior years”, Lawless concluded.
I have said it repeatedly and I will say it again: the Albanese Government’s record immigration push is an unmitigated disaster for Australian renters.
Where will the hundreds of thousands of new migrants expected to arrive every year live when there is already a chronic shortage of homes for the existing resident population?
The only outcome from Labor’s ‘Big Australia’ policy are permanent housing shortages, rising rents, and increased homelessness.
