Ella Doyle and her housemate spent more than $9000 on short-term rentals before finding a more permanent roof over their heads.Credit:Rhett Wyman
“If there is a vacant house somewhere then I’d prefer people sleeping in that than sleeping under a bridge or in a tent. Neither of those are at all a satisfactory solution,” he said,noting it clearly depends on why some homes are vacant.
Renter Ella Doyle spent months and more than $9000 before she was able to find a rental in Sydney in February.
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The 31-year-old business owner of a social media marketing agency,who relocated from Brisbane,said she submitted about 100 rental applications before she and her housemate were accepted.
“Every single inspection we turned up at,there were at least 50 people there. They weren’t cheap homes either. The places were terraces or townhouses ranging from $850 to $950 to $1500 for a two-bedder,” Doyle said.
They were only allocated five minutes to inspect the rentals,and the agents were too busy to answer many questions.
“We were missing other inspections because the lines were so long,” she said.
Ella said that in most instances,she had to pre-apply before inspecting,and in many cases,homes were whisked off the market by that evening.
After flying down twice for inspections,Doyle and her friend moved into short-term rentals for almost two months until they found a home.
“Dan and I are two singles,we’re both in our 30s and high earners. On paper,we should be in a position to buy a home,but there is no way to save a deposit with rental prices this high.”
Tenants’ Union of NSW chief executive Leo Patterson Ross said renters were making compromises to make ends meet while being pushed further away from homeownership,adding that the vacancy rate needs to be 3 per cent to keep rents steady and above 5 per cent for rents to fall.
“People do keep getting pushed away from the communities they have established. It might mean you have moved from a larger home to a smaller home,you move location,” Patterson Ross said. “All these things means a household ends up paying the same amount per week,but they’re not getting the same house and putting their health and safety at risk.”