We need to protect renters… the right way
How it helps:
Those who rent or are looking to rent on the Sunshine Coast are doing it tough because they are the community most at risk of homelessness. Regardless of their savings, income, job description or track record, they are at risk of homelessness because there simply are not enough rental properties to house all those who seek them. This imbalance of supply and demand is causing price competition, seeing those renters who are able to offering months or years rent in advance, offering to increase the weekly rental amount and more to secure a property. Those that can’t make such outrageous offers are left with very little choice about what to do next, resorting to couch surfing, staying in short term rentals at a high rate, sleeping in cars, sleeping rough, leaving the region or risking their safety for some kind of alternative accommodation.
We believe that measures need to be put in place to protect and support renters but we do not believe this should be in the form of rental caps or stricter regulations on landlords as those options will only make the situation worse for renters as residential property investors would further desert the market, leaving fewer rental properties for more people to compete for.
What renters need are more rental options to reduce the competition for properties making it easier to get into a rental, as well as naturally minimse the price hikes on rents.
When we have more rentals available and people can find homes and afford their rent the whole community benefits socially and economically. Many of the people looking for homes to rent are the same people who work in our region or are looking to fill jobs that are so desperately needed in the region. Imagine the change in our community when we don’t have masses of people stressed about where to live, how they’ll afford to pay their bills or how they’re going to get staff. Imagine the improvement to the whole community’s lifestyle and the economy when businesses can run at full capacity, delivering goods and services more efficiently and paying out more in wages. All this is blocked by the housing crisis and when we support renters, we support the whole community.
The challenges faced:
A lot of the commentary around renter protection has been focused on capping rental prices and giving more rights to tenants about how they can use a property (i.e. being able to have pets, being able to make modifications etc).
We understand that the cost of living and rents have been rising, placing a lot of financial strain on renters.
However, it is crucial to understand that placing further restrictions or penalties on landlords will not actually help renters. This is because the more difficult and more costly it becomes to own an investment property, the more investors we’ll see leave the market leaving even fewer rentals available and exacerbating the rental crisis which is purely driven by undersupply.
Recent trends have shown that more investors are selling their properties and fewer new investors are entering the market because the conditions don’t make the risk worth the reward.
Investors are not obligated to purchase residential property to rent out, they are not obligated to keep a property in the rental pool for any period of time and they are certainly not incentivized to provide 90% of the rentals across the country and yet they do make up that percentage. The government does not provide adequate housing options for the community and so the private investors make up the majority of what is required and yet they are treated like they are . While we know we need more rentals now and in the future, the conditions dictated by the government and regulatory bodies make it increasingly difficult for investors to borrow money to purchase investment properties and continue to cash grab making it unreasonable for many investors to hold on to their investment property. So with all this going on, you can see that adding more legislation and restrictions on the landlord makes their investment less and less viable which in turn negatively impacts the renters.
The other challenge that has made it harder for renters is that in many new land developments, the allocation of blocks of land or house and land packages for investors has been very minimal with priority given to the owner occupiers. We believe this is due to stigmas around renters being transient and incorrect assumptions that they are not community focused and that a new community would be better built with people who own and live in their homes. It is so disrespectful and incorrect to assume that a larger volume of renters would make a region less so.
What needs to be done:
the government needs to take some more responsibility over the rental situation because it is their fault that we have found ourselves in such an undersupplied market.
We need to work as a community to increase housing supply of all kinds and remove the stigma and stereotypes that many of us may subconsciously hold around landlords and tenants.
Landlords are not the big rich and greedy figures looking to squeeze dollars from others without a care for anyone else, they are mums and dads looking to support their financial future and not rely on the government in their retirement.
Tenants are not transient community members living without regard for properties and creating ghetto towns, they are people, they are part of the community, they work, study, live, and play in this region exactly the same way people who own homes do. They are doctors, teachers, students, families.
When we can realise that we’re all people and can treat one another with respect and recognise that the enemy is not one another but rather a situation of our region being undersupplied with property then we can work together to resolve it. Together with one loud voice we can make the government and other decision makers listen and act. Together we can make real change for our community’s bright future.