Social housing provider, Compass Housing, is the latest to report on the shocking decline in Melbourne affordable rental housing:
The Affordable Housing Income Gap Report, released today, has found that renters hoping to snag a three-bedroom home in inner-city Melbourne need to make $130,000 a year to live without housing stress.
That is just over $50,000 more than what the “typical renting household” makes in a year.
Those willing to downsize to a two-bedroom unit need an income of $93,600.
Households that pay more than 30 per cent of their income to housing costs are considered to be in stress.
“They’re facing a pretty tough choice to be honest,” said Martin Kennedy from Compass Housing…
“To avoid housing stress in Melbourne, a typical renting household generally has to choose between living a considerable distance from the city or living in a one-bedroom apartment,” he said.
“Neither of those things are practical for lots of families so they’re effectively forced to accept living in housing stress”…
“People in housing stress are less able to pay for other essential things, food and utilities, insurance, health care, child care.”
The data supports these concerns. Over the past 13 years, as Melbourne’s population has ballooned by 1.2 million people (33%), real inflation-adjusted rents have surged in Melbourne, according to the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS):
Accordingly, the proportion of new rental lettings ‘affordable’ to lower income households has crashed to a record low 4.5% – way down on the circa 30% recorded between 2000 and 2006, as well as the 12% recorded in 2012 and 2014:
And there is almost no affordable rentals available in the inner-city:
This comes despite a surge in Melbourne dwelling construction, which has failed to match the epic population increase:
This is pure evil by Australia’s policy makers. Not only has the mass immigration policy robbed Melbourne’s youth and the vulnerable of the opportunity to purchase a home, but it is driving up their cost of living via rents as well.
