It is amazing what passes for journalism these days.
Instead of attacking the Albanese government’s record immigration program for causing the nation’s rental crisis, 7 News has instead pinned the blame on interest rates, taxes, and charges for making property investors sell-out:
“Three quarters of tenants don’t know how they’ll afford rising rents, and the market’s only getting tighter”, says the report.
Meanwhile, “landlords are handing over their keys to first home buyers, with many renters being left behind”.
“Property investors all over Australia are being whacked with one baseball bat after another”, claims Simon Pressley from Propertyology. “And people can only bear so much”.
“It’s a ripple effect pushing more renters out”, claims the 7 News reporter.
“These properties that were investment homes have now become first home buyers”, claims Peter Diamantidis from Ray White.
Meanwhile, CoreLogic research director, Tim Lawless, warned that “September saw the vacancy rate fall to a record low”.
“I think the unfortunate reality is that we are set to stay with this upward pressure on rents and very tight conditions for renters”, Lawless said.
“Investor activity isn’t quite at the level it needs to be to meaningfully increase rental supply”, says PropTrack Senior economist, Eleanor Creagh.
Blaming the rental crisis on landlords selling-up is ridiculous because their property doesn’t just disappear.
Rather, when an investor sells to a first home buyer, rental supply is reduced by one dwelling, but so too is rental demand as a tenant becomes an owner.
The real culprit is the Albanese government’s record immigration program, which saw around 500,000 net migrants land in Australia in the 2022-23 financial year:
This immigration flood has overwhelmed supply and pushed rental vacancy rates to record lows:
Source: CoreLogic
Why won’t Australia’s mainstream media be honest and mention the immigration elephant trampling Australian renters?
