This week, Roy Morgan released its Wealth Report 2023, which showed that “the lowest half of the population, primarily renters” saw their real wealth rise by only 1.0% between March 2020 (pre-COVID) and March 2023.
This compares to a 7.0% real rise in wealth across the broader population, “driven primarily by the rising value of owner-occupied homes, which increased by 43.2% from $4.16 trillion to $5.95 trillion”.
The situation facing Australian renters continues to worsen with rental costs still rising at a double-digit pace across the capital cities.
According to CoreLogic, rents increased a further 0.7% in June to be 11.5% higher year-on-year across the combined capital cities:
Source: CoreLogic
PropTrack’s latest rental market report is even worse, recording 17.0% rental growth across the combined capital cities in the year to June:
Source: PropTrack
“Rental markets continue to be extremely challenging for renters, with rents surging across much of the country amid strong demand and very limited availability”, noted PropTrack.
“Rents are likely to continue growing in capitals over the coming months”.
Rents are rising fastest in the main capitals’ unit markets, which are popular with international students, who are pouring into Australia at a record rate:
As we know, the latest federal budget projected that Australia’s population would swell by a record 2.18 million people over the five years to 2026-27, led by record net overseas migration of 1.5 million people.
This unprecedented population growth will occur at a time when the actual rate of dwelling construction is declining due to widespread home builder failures, rampant material cost inflation, and increasing financing costs.
This equation can only have one outcome: extreme rental market tightness, soaring rents, and more people thrown into homelessness.
Australian renters are being treated like second-class citizens by the Albanese Government’s extreme immigration fetish.
