International students drive rents into stratosphere

Over many months MB has documented the rental crisis sweeping across Australia.

This crisis has come to the fore this month with CoreLogic recording the strongest rental growth on record in August, with rents soaring 10% year-on-year nationally:

Record rental growth across Australia.

At the same time, SQM Research has recorded the tightest rental vacancies on record, with the vacancy rate nationally collapsing to just 0.9% in August:

Record low rental vacancy rates.

The worst is yet to come, too, given the Albanese Government has committed to driving-up immigration to its highest ever level, including via:

• Lifting the permanent non-humanitarian migrant intake to a record high 195,000 a year;
• Turbo-charging temporary migration by expanding work rights for international students via:
  • Uncapping the number of hours international students can work while studying for another year; and
  • Extending the length of post-study work visas by two years.

The former Morrison Government’s uncapping of international student working hours last year has already seen an explosion of student visa applications from India and Nepal. And there is every likelihood that Labor’s maintenance of this policy, combined with its two-year extension to post study work visas, will turbo-charge international student arrivals even more.

The impact on the rental market is already being felt, with 7News reporting that “Sydney’s rental crisis has gone from bad to worse with prices soaring by hundreds of dollars a week, right across the city”, caused in part by the arrival of international students:

Below is the key quote from the above report:

“Backed into a corner by her landlord, booted from this Zetland apartment block, time is running out for Sarah Jane to find a new home”.

“Just days ago, the 27 year old was hit with this notice stating your new rent will be $1,700 a fortnight, up from $1,260. The real estate agency blaming “Inflation of the economy and overseas students coming back” post covid”…

“And then came a letter to terminate”…

“In the city’s inner south, dozens of tenants have reached tipping point. 7News receiving several rental notices with landlords jacking up rental prices as much as 35%”.

Meanwhile, the property lobby continues to argue that the rental crisis is being caused by a lack of supply, which will only get worse as immigration accelerates:

“What we need is more property. And until they do that, this problem is going to continue, and I suggest get worse” [said Tim MCKibbin, CEO of Real Estate Institute of NSW].

Sadly, the Albanese Government’s ‘Big Australia’ mass immigration push will only succeed in turning the nation’s rental crisis into an unmitigated disaster.

Where will the hundreds of thousands of new migrants live when there is already a chronic rental shortage across the nation?

The only logical outcome is that rental vacancies will crater even lower, rents will continue to soar, and thousands of Australians will be thrown into homelessness.

The Albanese Government’s ‘Big Australia’ mass immigration policy is an inequality disaster in the making.