Unsustainable rents - Australia

Rental market failing many Australians, especially pensioners and students: RAI

https://first2move.com.au 

Australia is in the grip of a housing crisis and the rental market is failing too many people — especially older women, according to the latest Rental Affordability Index (RAI).

Key points:

Sydney worst city to rent — some households pay almost 90pc of their incomes

Hobart second worst area, due to the number of people there living on low incomes

Mr Pisarski said the private sector needs to invest more in community housing

The report, released today by the National Shelter, Community Sector Banking and SGS, found low-income households could no longer afford to live in metropolitan areas.

Pensioners and students were the most vulnerable, with some of them winding up homeless.

Adrian Pisarski, executive officer of National Shelter, was involved with compiling the index and said there was, "virtually no affordable housing in any Australian city for people on low incomes".

"This is now representative of a true housing crisis in Australia and a true market failure," he said.

Sydney remained the worst city to rent, bleeding some households of almost 90 per cent of their incomes.

Hobart was the second worst area, due to the number of people there living on low incomes.

And then it was glitzy holiday destinations like Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, or the Gold Coast in south east Queensland.

(Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation )