MEDIA RELEASES

• In three years the housing market has turned 180 degrees. In 2003, with prices surging, the fear was too much investment and too many apartments. Now, it is rents that are rising, and the concern is too little investment and too few new homes.
• Across Australia, the number of available rental houses and apartments is at the lowest level in more than a decade. And the housing crisis is going to get worse.
• According to BIS Shrapnel the median rent on 3 bedroom home in Sydney could rise 40 to 45 % by 2010. For Melbourne, the rise would by 25%, for Brisbane 35%, for Adelaide around 17% and for Perth where rents have moved significantly over the past year, 15%.
• Rents have jumped enough to make a small contribution to the consumer price index. In Perth, in the year to March, the median rent on a two-bedroom apartment leapt 29%.
• Unlike previous rental squeezes, this one is not confined to the metropolitan area but is extending into the regions, particularly mining towns like Karratha in the Pilbarra and Mackay in North Queensland.
• Australia has more than 1.6 million households renting from private landlords and more than most, they are hostage to the irresistible logic of rising demand and falling supply.
• According to Bernard Salt from KPMG between 2001 and 2031, the countries top 41 cities would need another 4.6 million houses and apartments.
• Natural growth, immigration and (most importantly) new household formation create a surprisingly robust demand for new accommodation. A key element is falling household size. In 1981 the average household had 3.2 people. By 2001 that was down to 2.74 people and by 2021 the household size is predicted to be 2.46 people.
• A decade ago, 18 per cent of households were renting; on the latest numbers the figure is more than 21%. As much of the new investment housing is at the top end of the market, and quite wealthy people are now renting very ordinary property, those at the bottom end are being squeezed.
• It is possible 500,000 low income households are in housing stress, paying 30% of their income or more to put a roof over their heads. Demand is sucking investment to the top end of the market and the crisis is at the lower end.
• Brad Piltz, the managing director of property consultant LandMark White, tells of a two bedroom apartment in the inner Sydney suburb of Paddington whose owner was getting $450 a week and decided to relet at $500 a week. Seven weeks later there had been not takers. The owner dropped the rent to $475 and leased within days. No one said that $500 was too much. They just didn’t take it. There is a ceiling and an issue of affordability” Piltz says.

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