News data shows rental affordability has plunged to record lows in almost every Australian capital city and region
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00:00This is the 10th iteration of this report that's come out and it shows that rent affordability
00:07is at record lows across the country.
00:10The authors of the report compare median incomes with median rents to find out which places
00:15are affordable for the average renter, based on the assumption that if you're paying 30%
00:21or more of your income on rent, then rent is unaffordable.
00:26This year was the first time in 10 years that two capital cities in Australia have become
00:31unaffordable for the average renter.
00:34They were Perth and Sydney.
00:35Perth in particular has seen unaffordability really rise since 2020 when the pandemic began.
00:44It has been rapidly unaffordable over the past few years, but particularly in the last
00:51year, rent affordability has dropped by 13%.
00:58Tasmania and the ACT saw affordability increase a little bit, so it's a bit better there for
01:04renters, but that's largely due to Tasmania's economy not doing so well and quite high incomes
01:10on average in the ACT.
01:11So the authors decided that because unaffordability is so dire in some areas for some people,
01:17that they've created this new category called critically unaffordable rents, and that captures
01:22people who are spending 75% or more of their income on rent per week.
01:28That is largely affecting people on job seeker payments and single pensioners, and that really
01:34goes to show or speaks to the lack of public and social housing that we have across the
01:39country, because usually those people would be captured by the system and be put in homes
01:44with the assistance from state and territory governments, but that's just not happening
01:48because our stock is so low, and so those people are having to be pushed into the private
01:54rental market.
01:56John Engler from National Shelter spoke about this new category earlier on News Breakfast.
02:01Check out what he had to say.
02:03So not just severely unaffordable, critically unaffordable.
02:06So getting worse, a new colour, in fact, we've had to introduce to indicate on our heat maps
02:13when somebody's likely to pay more than 75% of their income, that's a new low.
02:18It's coming down to decisions, as we say, cost of living, do they make decisions between
02:22rent or groceries or energy bills?
02:25It's getting to that, as we say, critical level.
02:28What John said there really speaks to how more and more renters are feeling the pinch
02:32when it comes to rent.
02:34We know we've got a cost of living crisis, but I think really going into next year, housing
02:38and renting in particular is really going to be front of mind for voters, and something
02:42the major parties need to keep their eye on.