My prediction is that current urban rental crisis will soon be over…
Mainstream media is saying we will go to war with China within 3 yrs, and the first thing will be all the Chinese students will be outta here…
So for all those struggling to find a place and being priced out….just hang in there a little longer!!
Yep, we've had two years to test that hypothesis. OP is a little late to the party.
what's the real cause if the immi numbers back to pre-pandemic levels and given the housing numbers being constant ,
perhaps many moved out of family / from share-house, to owning their own home during 2020 / 2021 / 2022 ?
or many properties left vacant yet not in market for rent ?
or immi numbers higher than ever before , surpassing pre-pandemic levels ?
I haven't seen a good answer to this. My take is it's like the toilet paper crisis - same number of bums and sheets, but distribution problems create seeming scarcity.
And we would have cracked the shits at TP profiteering but here we encourage it.
@TooSerious2: Are you implying more people owning multiple properties but leaving them empty and not renting out ?
Doesn't makes sense.
@dcep: Airbnb
The houses still exist and are still turning a profit for the landlord. Just not available for long term rental.
Last couple of years has seen the number of airbnbs in my town double to over 400 listings. While a good chunk a guest house, granny flats or rooms, plenty are completely empty homes. That are now not available to live in.
@johndoh89: To add to this an Airbnb may only need to be occupied 50% of the time to be more a better investment for the owner than a long term rental. So for 50% of the time the house is providing no benefit to the community.
@Krankite: This is true but I'm my opinion the governnent have created this problem by enforcing far too many rights for renters such as the ever decreasing grounds by which a tenant can be evicted, caps on rental increases regardless of tenant being at the end of their contract etc.
Investors have copped 9 straight interest rate rises and have to pass on a good portion of those costs to the end user in the form of rent increases yet the regulations prevent you from doing it. This is why more investors are waking up and turning to other methods that have less red tape attached.
@dcep: I live in an apartment block and the owners of both apartments on either side of me are vacant and have been form 3+ years. The owners don't have any financial issues, they are simply holiday homes for when they visit Melbourne, neither of them has any interest in renting them out.
Just 2 examples that I know of, although I'm not sure this is the cause of high rents as plenty were doing this well before Covid.
during covid the students were replaced by expats returning from working overseas. I had friends and family return from long stints in canada, japan, uk, usa etc. they all needed a home when they returned. either buying or renting still puts pressure on the housing markets.
@Antikythera: Returning expats would be a drop in the bucket. The number of international students in Melbourne alone (the most affected city due to the number of university students) number in the hundreds of thousands
Didn't i read somewhere that apparently relationships also failed causing people to not be living together anymore and also at the same not many people to share houses with because many people also went back to living with their parents? This was from The Guardian btw…
During the pandemic, there were a number of prospective immigrants who were essentially left in limbo. They were onshore but still not permanent residents. So they were being tenants and paying rent but not being counted as new immigrants. Now that the restrictions have eased, a lot of these people have gotten their permanent residencies, so the immi count goes up, but the housing numbers stay the same. Just a theory. Source: I went through this process.
@razdi: this is the most likely, also the Federal govt has sped up the process (and also offering more pathways to boost worker pool), along with the fact that alot of younger professionals may have moved back in with parents since they couldn't have a social life, plus in times of uncertainty, people tend to want to stick around with family. Bundle in the fact alot of investment properties were suddenly converted from AirBnB and flooded back in the regular rental market when tourism was cut at its knees, are now all suddenly taken off the market to be converted back into AirBnB.
I think things are going to get abit worse since tourism will continue to grow and the temptation to convert IP to AirBnB will become greater, also companies will start demanding folks go back into work as ancedotal articles about people skiving off work or doing their side hustle during work time becomes more common, dribble by certain group of media companies.
the news of Chinese students not being allowed to remote study and come flooding back in is the straw that broke the camels back, and is just very minimal in terms of overall effect, dribble by same group of media companies mentioned above…
Chinese student's were not just allowed back in - that was last year. What has just happened was the Chinese government banned all uni students from studying online with overseas universities, forcing them to return to the country they're enrolled with. 40,000 returning students have definitely helped crush a market that was already at capacity.
Most incoming Chinese students have come back to slum-level CBD one and two bedroom student high rise apartments and on-campus dormitory accommodation that were largely sitting around unlet because nobody else wanted to or was allowed to live there.
This^.
Our clients have several thousand rooms with varying types of accommodation.
The students only take up CBD 1-2 bedders and proper student accommodation like Union lodge etc or university supplied dormitories.
The chinese students don't rent out whole houses in suburbia.
Thats late January this year. Rent in Sydney skyrocketed during Covid.
40,000 returning students have definitely helped crush a market that was already at capacity.
Should we discuss what puts the market at capacity or just ignore it again like we have always done for the past decade and focuses on the recent influx in January instead because it somehow relates to an upcoming war with China?
I mean fool me once, shame on you, shame me twice? I dont mind getting fooled seeing everybody was happy to be fooled for so long.
Its actually a flood of people from other countries including India. People coming from China only compounds the issue.
hahahaha , can't a man have a biscuit (says the lord).
My answer to OP is:
1. Don't listen to media
2. Have you ever lived in a war? 1000 times better to have rental crisis than be in a war.
3. In a case of war with China, I am sorry to say these we don't stand a chance.
4. In a case of war, there will not be enough houses to live in, because houses will be destroyed.
Case closed 🔒
Australia's landmass is too large for China to completely control during or post a war. The best they could do is hold Darwin. Their supply lies would be too stretched to realistically hold all of NSW and Vic.
War has changed and so has society. It isn't necessary to hold large land masses with troops to win a war.
If an invading army cripples electricity, internet and telecommunications and don't occupy anything else they can siege a city.
OzDearDiary
OzGossipGirl
QOZanon
XoXoGossipGoat
The number of people getting visas and immigrating over right now is absolutely crazy. Especially from places like India.
Lots of companies are on hiring sprees for future growth. They all need somewhere to live so doubt it will be over.
Yeah, agree. I was posted overseas for three years and just got back in Jan and I too have noticed a big increase in Indian migrants. I think it's wonderful (I support a bigger Australia) but it's noticeable all the same.
I support a bigger Australia
Why?
Notwithstanding the cries of NIMBYS, Australia remains under-populated. Bigger and denser regions would be a boon for country Australia and reduce pressure on our major cities. For most of our white history, we've indulgently lived in paradise, then screwed it ecologically, and now are saying we can't let others share what we have. I don't buy that (I live in a rural area too - heaps of space).
Australia remains under-populated
It is mostly desert.
denser regions
Gross. People live regional because they want more space, not less.
The country is huge, we don't have the infrastructure for more people, it's traffic chaos already in most places. The only reason for a "bigger Australia" is to import more people to drive down wages and increase GDP, neither of which helps the everyman.
@brendanm: Have you been to regional/rural Australia? Plenty of land. We just need to build the required infrastructure to allow for expansion into those areas.
@Munki: I lived regional for 20 odd years. Have you travelled this country? To build infrastructure to all these places would be insanely expensive, as they are all a very long way from each other. Immigrants all want to live in the city, further contesting the already congested.
@brendanm: This.
If we shaped our visa system to encourage/force immigrants to work and bring value to regional areas it would be a big win-win. Sadly I don't see many Chinese or Indian people, even those as economic refugees, interested outside of city living. Those are our biggest import of people.
@Munki: The problem with that is no immigrant wants to live in rural Australia! No work, too 'far from civilization' and there's no infrastructure in place! Government is too dumb to make something work esp. the housing crisis, too busy politicking. Surprising that immigrants are choosing this shitty country over others in Europe and the west.
@kiwiyonip: why Europe, as lovely as it can sometimes be, my biggest waste of time was working there and trying to make a living…
@brendanm: Something like 95% of Australians live in major cities.
We have so much space its absolutely ridiculous anyone could even try to argue otherwise.
@Nereosis: Yep, so much space, but dumb government can't do something about housing. Australians mostly in cities or near it, no one wants to live in a rural 'spaceous' area because there's NO WORK available!
@brendanm: Yeah, nah. Say all you want but we inhabit a continent with 2 people per square kilometre and you're saying we can't double that to say 4. That thinking is indulgent and naive. Clever cities can have smaller carbon footprints if we can design them right. Or should we continue to be the world's highest emitters, while luxuriating in our quarter acre patches of heaven to the exclusion of people who want to live, invest and improve Australia. That's not the country that I want to live in.
Say all you want but we inhabit a continent with 2 people per square kilometre and you're saying we can't double that to say 4.
I'm saying I don't want to.
That's not the country that I want to live in
You are free to go elsewhere?
@Lunarboogie: We live in the convenient and pleasant places -they're already overpopulated. Most people that choose to go live in the remote north only do so because they have a gov job that subsidizes the huge living costs (ever run 2x A/C units 24/7 for 4 months? ever paid for a new house build in a remote community?)
@ssfps: AC is no worse than running a heater. a Good 2.5kw inverter AC uses SFA power plus u can always put solar on if wanted.
Yes houses are cost more to build but land is a hell of a lot cheaper.
There are heaps of areas other than capital cities where you can still get a 100% liveable 3 bed 2 bath starter home for 250k.
@brendanm: You know it's a self-fulfilling prophecy right?
Low populations mean infrastructure has no reason to accommodate bigger populations. If government had to actually think about a booming population then we might actually have better infrastructure all around.
If everyone is just going to buy a car and go live more rural then no point.
@DingoBilly: Show me a comparable example where a country with growing cities decentralized the population?
You know what actually happens is the cities just get more and more congested, life gets harder and harder for the average people, and they get more and more removed from nature, living in a mega-metropolis hellscape?
It's also stupid to think allowing immigrants that want to "improve" the country is good for anybody. What that actually does is skim the top few % of achievers from other countries (eg brain drain), while making absolutely no difference to their home countries well-being or population growth.
@ssfps: Ironically the example is China. The media who is always looking for clickbait called them 'ghost cities'. They aren't empty anymore, they house the millions of people who have been moved from rural areas.
@brendanm: "we don't have the infrastructure for more people"
we don't have the water for more people.
@Lunarboogie: Please explain how open door immigration improves the lives of Australian citizens? Give concrete examples. So what if GDP goes up?
Even skilled immigration is dodgy. You get 1 skilled person + their spouse & children & siblings & possibly even parents (chain migration). Research has found that the initial skilled immigrant contributes more than they collect from the government, but everyone else they bring with them, on average, rakes in more from the government than they contribute.
Immigration is impoverishing Australia and ruining our quality of life. The job of the Australian govt is to look after Australians, and not to provide welfare to the rest of the world.
Let me tell you the real reason people are pro-immigration: they own lots of rental properties (99% of politicians are in this category). More immigration means more capital gains for them. Immigration makes the rich, richer, and everyone else poorer.
@RefusdClassification: Agree. I know one immigrant migrated under skill visa. Then he brought his parents, his brother… then brothers wife, kids, his own wife and kids and then their in laws….50% of them dont speak english and dont integrate into society here. They live most overseas and came here only when they want to use australia medical sevice.
@clover: I am keen to know how these people manage to migrate over and bring so many families here. All the anecdotes here made it sounds like it is so easy to migrate to Australia.
I have a few non-Aussie friends & colleagues who struggle to get PR under skilled migration due the english test requirements for migration. They speak and write better English than the other local colleagues, yet somehow the requirements dictates them to get perfect academic english to secure enough points to even submit an EOI for migration.
Also, family sponsored visas are now very limited too and I don't think you can sponsor siblings anymore. Sponsored and contributory parents migration cost a fortune (>$60K per person apparently), and in some Visa types, they don't give you access to Medicare in the first few years as the parents are asked to buy private insurance (the non-rebated version). The non-contributory one will take a lifetime to be granted, with 20+ years processing time and some can only be applied after you hit retirement age (currently set to 67).
@clover: Oh Gawd. The old Pauline Hanson "they breed like rabbits and they don't integrate" line.
Mate, you are a liar as well as a racist - you do NOT know such a person.
@RefusdClassification: I am sorry, but are you high on something? I am migrant myself, been here for half of my life and whatever you have said is not normally possible. Yes, a migrant can bring his/her spouse and dependent children but it is very very difficult and impossible for most to bring siblings, parent and others. What research are you even talking about?
Most of us are thankful for the opportunity provided by this country and we try hard to give something back to community. But being migrant is not easy, we are not someone that Australia picks up out of nowhere and decides to hand all the welfare and benefits for us.
Can you give me an example how we are ruining your life?
@Lunarboogie: We are not underpopulated. more than half of the country is uninhabitable and the infrastructure we do have buckles under the weight of demand on the regular.
Because Australia is quite an underpopulated place and can do with migration to level out our surplus food production capacity and allow for us to further develop critical industries that can make us a more prosperous country.
In saying that I would like to heavily caveat this, as:
1. I don't support the large number of single-nation origin people's entering Australia. In recent history its been waves of Chinese and now the Indian/Nepalese. These days the vast majority of migrants are economic ones vs refugee/borderline refugee immigrants of yesteryear (myself coming from an ethnic background of the latter kind), and so I feel like our bureaucrats should have better control on who enters. This country is built on diversity and I think some sort of quota limitation on country of origin would be appropriate to allow greater peoples from across the world to enter instead of a vast majority of people coming from an isolated part of the world, and thus creating dominating immigration waves.
2. It is clearly obvious that our cities are getting overcrowded whilst regional centres are suffering from a lack of population growth. Many of these immigrants are grateful for the opportunity to be in Australia either for work/study and I personally can't see any reason why the focus of immigration isn't shifted strongly to regional areas. Something similar to the medical onboarding system, where foreign GP's have to work 10 years outside of metropolitan areas (5 years if in truly remote areas) before being allowed to practice in cities, would be a similarly ideal way of shifting populations more equitably.
3. Having made conversations with quite a few of such immigrants, many come for education but their background focus/objective is to work, earn and make remittances back home. I have no issue with the latter but surely temp work visa policies can be adjusted so that the valuable opportunity of education does not get wasted and can be utilised more effectively.
My 2c
@JDMcarfan: On your 1st point, I used to agree but I've changed tune of late. The Indians that are arriving now will dominate Australia in a generation or two. Look at the UK to see the impact that they have had there. From the BBC to Downing Street to every corner of the place, Indian-Brits succeed. In the US, it's the same - just go to San Fran to see this for example. Wherever they go, Indian migrants improve the countries they reside in (except of course India but that's for a variety of other reasons).
So what does this mean for the rest of us? Well, it means we just have to rise to their level to compete. This will ultimately make Australia a better place. We shouldn't be scared of them. Let them come.
@Lunarboogie: The Indians have not and are not making improvements anywhere. Bringing a ghetto lifestyle from India to Australia is not an improvement. Refusing to use deodorant is not an improvement. Pushing and shoving to get to the front of a queue is not an improvement. GPs not able to provide even a basic level of care (prescription writers only) is not an improvement. And so on.
@dcash: There are bad apples in every community. I know a fair few Australians who are guilty of many of the things you've outlined. We should be mindful that for many of these newly arrived migrants, there's an adjustment period in what is a completely new country. I can assure you their children will not be the same. Indians strive for success, work hard and generally do well. Theirs is a civilisation of several millenia.
Visit any Australian university campus and you'll see a disproportionate amount of Australian Indian students there. They're streaming into the bureaucracy, boardrooms and high offices across the country and this will only increase. So instead of pointing the finger at Rajiv the smelly uber driver and using him as an example, you'll be better off looking at Kamala Harris, Rishi Sunak and the millions of other Indians that are kicking ass in the UK, US, Canada, NZ and here.
@Lunarboogie: This is one thing im happy with. The children will usually be brought up in the Aussie way of life from the get go, so they should be better adjusted. Those who come in, keep to themselves and bring with them their religious dogmas which they militantly adhere to and never venture out of their own circles grind my gears. Thankfully over time this becomes less of an issue
@JDMcarfan: A lot of migrants are apparently addressing skills shortages but upon speaking to those immigrants, I have found that very few are actually working in the occupations that they were provided immigration for.
I have found that very few are actually working in the occupations that they were provided immigration for.
I've known so many immigrants who are being exploited by this country, taking their immigration application money but never seeing these applicants go through the correct process of living and applying their skills once they land here, ending up with mediocre jobs. This country is just happy collecting revenue from these poor souls thru taxes, but not providing the means to have proper lives. In the US, prescription meds are free, but here you'll have to pay for them, what a shame!
It's hardly "wonderful" if we don't have the housing and infrastructure to support all of these extra people.
How do you think houses get built? Because there's no demand and prices are rock bottom? No, houses and apartments get built because demand is going up and prices are sky rocketing thanks to immigration. We need to maximise immigration to capable workers and minimise charity intakes but we definitely need them. We rely on the younger generation/new immigrants to feed us and give us wealth. Without them, growth in wealth and position in society is hard.
If the amount of immigration is 'crazy' then why has the net migration rate been steadily dropping for the last 15 years? The last time it was this low was in the year 2000, and it's well below the long-term average for Australia.
That's as a percentage, the Australian population has grown and continues to.
The world is overpopulated feeding climate change, constantly growing our population is just increasing our carbon footprint.
I've spent time in Chinas south and I don't want Australia to become populated like that. Even the Chinese don't want it that heavily populated because of the pollution, the people in the south literally celebrate when Hong Kong gets hit by bad weather as it brings fresh air in.
The net migration rate does not track total immigration - it is a measure of immigration vs emigration, i.e how many people are coming in vs how many are leaving. An increasing emigration rate will decrease the net migration rate, but that doesn't mean total immigration is decreasing or staying flat - it very well could be increasing. Here are the actual immigration numbers:
2000-01 - 80 610
2001–02 - 93 080
2002–03 - 108 070
2003–04 - 114 360
2004–05 - 120 060
2005–06 - 142 930
2006–07 - 148 200
2007–08 - 158 630
2008–09 - 171 318
2009–10 - 168 623
2010–11 - 168 685
2011–12 - 184 998
2012–13 - 190 000
2013–14 - 190 000
2014–15 - 189 097
2015–16 - 189 770
2016- 17 - 207 245
2017-18 - 162 417
2018-19 - 239 600
Data source 2000-2015
Data source 2016
Data source 2017
Data source 2018
As you can see, total immigration increased drastically between 2000 & 2009 and has gradually been increasing since then minus the pandemic period and an outlier of 2017-2018. Immigration this year will be back in full force this year at a higher level than any year before according to the treasurer.
The net migration rate does not track total immigration - it is a measure of immigration vs emigration, i.e how many people are coming in vs how many are leaving.
Doesn't that make the net migration rate the useful figure when talking about housing? If 100,000 people arrive but 100,000 people leave, housing is much the same as it was. With net migration dropping, but housing getting worse, that implies that it's the housing that's not keeping up, not an issue with the increased immigration.
With net migration dropping, but housing getting worse, that implies that it's the housing that's not keeping up, not an issue with the increased immigration.
Yes you are right, a dropping migration rate is a positive sign for those concerned about population growth, and lagging growth of housing stock (and infrastructure) is fully one half of the problem.
However the fact that our migration rate still exceeds our capacity to deliver housing and infrastructure (and seems to be getting worse despite the migration rate dropping) is the crux of the issue, and I think the point of the commenter you were responding to. If we can't fix the housing supply problem, the only other lever to pull is the demand side of immigration.
However the fact that our migration rate still exceeds our capacity to deliver housing and infrastructure (and seems to be getting worse despite the migration rate dropping) is the crux of the issue
Totally agree.
@Spam Service: I can't offer any hope though, we all know the government will keep cramming people in here to make up for the lack of per capita economic growth due to their lack of investment in economic development other than mining 🙄
hang in there a little longer!!
3 years?¿
Until China literally flattens the market…
when u mean flatten, u mean when all their tofu dreg buildings fall down and flatten them all
Was thinking more drop a nuke or drive a sub through the centre of the country….
Nothing as small as war with China will get in the way of mass migration. We have to suppress wages to placate the investor (political donor) class. All hail the GDP.
Nothing triggers migration like war either, Australia had book of Greeks and Italians after the world wars.
70s vietnam and Lebanon, 80s balkans, afghan and african, 90s-00s Sudanese and syria
Wow what a world man, to make our rental crisis better, only way you could think about solving it by thinking of WAR with China.
The Australian housing market is so resilient no amount of nukes would ever destroy it.
Rgds- The Aust. Govt.
Putin: Hold my водка
yep, nukes can't destroy them, but some listings in RealEstate website have termite infestations, so
Termites > Nukes.
Woah… I think you've just stumbled onto something there. Maybe we can make a termite force shield over Australia, that will protect us from any nukes sent our way from China!
better yet, make biological weapons out of Aussie termites and send them to China, or better just send in volumes via spy balloons made from China, drop them like nukes.
Mate, just confiscate bubble teas. They will evaporate along with rental crisis.
Buy a house…rental crisis over.
Remove the stone of rental crisis!
Attach the stone of inflation!!
Found scuntmo's burner account!
Do you want the taxpayers to help you buy a house because you bought a 20 year old BMW with a broken gearbox so you could look cool?
Don't worry, it's a common mistake.
I'm guessing this was sarcasm.
Why not get a second job like our good friend Joe Hockey suggests?
That’s right, just stop being poor.
Chinese students were only just allowed back in again, so the current crisis isn't to do with them.