Annual rental affordability survey finds worst results for low income earners in 10 years

Rental affordability for low-income earners has reached the worst levels in a decade, research shows.

In a survey of 69,485 rental listing across Australia, Anglicare Australia’s Rental Affordability Snapshot found a chronic shortage of affordable properties across the country.

There were no affordable properties available for a single person on Newstart or Youth Allowance in any major city or regional centre, Anglicare found.

There were just 75 affordable rentals Australia-wide for a single parent on Newstart with one child, and just 317 for a single person on the disability support pension.

Those on the minimum wage – $37,398 annually – were not much better off, with only 2 per cent of rentals Australia-wide affordable for a single person working full time.

Anglicare Australia has conducted its Rental Affordability Snapshot for the past decade.

Executive director Kasy Chambers said this was a dire crisis for people on the lowest incomes.

“It’s the worst it’s been. We’re looking at the bottom end of the market and that never gets cheaper,” Ms Chambers said. “Because we have more demand than supply and rents fall off at the top end. Rents don’t fall at the bottom end.”

An affordable property is calculated as no more than 30 per cent of the household budget spent on rent, but Ms Chambers said her agency regularly spoke to people who spent 80 per cent of their income on rent, leaving them little for other expenses.

“There’s absolutely nowhere to go. We see a lot of people in our emergency relief centre where they can get a meal and some assistance on budgeting. But there’s nothing we can teach them about budgeting. They’re absolute experts.”

She said people were often making difficult choices, forgoing food, medication and transport to make ends meet.

“We know it’s not sensible to eat two minute noodles but it’s a sensible economic decision,” Ms Chambers said. “We see people who let their transport go and they’re already in areas without public transport and that further isolates them to get jobs.”

While families on government support were also largely priced out of the private rental market, the availability of affordable rentals improved marginally once there was a couple household.

There were 777 affordable rentals available nationally for a couple both on Newstart with two children.

This improved again slightly for a couple on the age pension but with no children, with 3.2 per cent of rentals – or 2223 properties – deemed affordable.

Meanwhile, a couple both on minimum wage with two children aged under 10 and who are eligible for family tax benefit A are the best off with 24 per cent or 16,666 affordable rentals across Australia.

She said there was also an alarming change in rental affordability for people on a minimum wage.

“We’ve really seen the affordability drop there, which is really disappointing because we didn’t use to register the minimum eight years ago,” Ms Chambers said.

The report identified the need for 300,000 social and affordable properties across Australia to address the affordability crisis, a figure commonly quoted by other not-for-profit organisations.

Ms Chambers said more investment was needed in social and affordable housing rather than in generous tax breaks for investors in the private rental market.

She said new development should match housing needs of smaller households and single women over 55 years age, the fastest-growing group of homeless people.

“We are looking at flipping from a country where most people were doing comfortable to a country where people are worried about becoming homeless. It’s not an equity issue but a fundamental issue of what kind of society we want to be.

“We didn’t get into this situation overnight. It took us a couple of decades to get here. It will take us a while to get out,” she said.