Landlord’s frustration at bad tenants as industry warns against rental caps, freezes
Sandy Dennis is a lifelong Greens voter and environmentalist.
Key points:
- Australian landlords are saying they are fed up with being “burnt” by bad tenants
- The 2021 Census counted 122,000 homeless people in Australia
- Landlords say they are selling up because new rental laws give them few rights
But 30 years as a landlord, 10 of those in Perth, have left her conflicted between the Greens’ tenets of “giving renters a fair go” in “sustainable, quality housing”, and being “burnt” by another bad tenant.
Ms Dennis has gone through five tenants in the past 10 years.
All but one, she said, had either skipped rent, run a methylamphetamine kitchen, failed to clean the house, or left it damaged.
“I had one lady who left the house immaculate, and she was a wonderful tenant but had to go to Queensland,” she said.
“All others have taken off, done a midnight blitz,” she said.
She said they had taken possessions and not left a forwarding address.
“I won’t take anyone who is on social security anymore and I feel bad about that,” she said.
“But four of my tenants have been on social security for one reason or another.
“They have all been the ones who’ve taken off on me.”
Ms Dennis said she had given up on property managers to run her investment property and tried to avoid lengthy days in court to get bonds back.
She said she managed the rental property herself and ignored reference letters and phone calls when vetting a prospective tenant.
States follow rental reform
Most of Australia’s states and territories have already introduced or are phasing in rental reforms, such as limiting rent increases to once every 12 months, putting a stop to rent bidding, and making it easier for either the landlord or tenant to apply for a release of a bond.
“I’ll have to go and see them in person to see it’s a real person and I’ll ask for proof that they paid their light bills and have a work history,” she said.
“I’m usually a very trustful person,” Ms Dennis said.
Hers is the other side of Australia’s housing crisis that recorded 122,494 people as homeless in the 2021 Census.
Australia’s peak group for social welfare said it supported efforts by states and territories to boost protections for tenants across a range of areas, including against no-cause evictions.
Welfare struggles
Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie said intense competition in the rental market was hitting people on the lowest incomes and social support payments, such as JobSeeker, particularly hard.
“This is compounded by factors including rising gas and electricity costs, which is forcing vulnerable people to choose between heating their homes or buying food,” Dr Goldie said.
Of the 20 landlords from all over Australia who were approached for comment by the ABC, most were afraid of speaking up as they did not want to appear as the bad landlord and risk a backlash.
Circle Green Community Legal Center senior lawyer Daniel Pritchard said the reasons a landlord wants to evict a tenant could sometimes be arbitrary.
“We’ve heard from tenants that it’s things like the landlord not being happy that they’ve asked them to fix something at the house and the tenant wants it fixed, but the landlord would prefer to evict the tenant rather than do that, ” he said.
Mr Pritchard said it was imperative that states and territories had laws protecting tenants from being evicted for no reason.
“It’s all well and good to give tenants these other rights, but if you don’t give them the ability to enforce those rights without fear of eviction, then those rights mean nothing,” he said.
Landlords sell up
Multiple real estate agents and landlords spoken to by the ABC said landlords were getting out of property investment because of Victoria’s Residential Tenancies Act.
Reforms introduced by the state government in 2021 included a ban on rental bidding, strict reasons for eviction, and allowing modifications by renters.
All of the agents and landlords said that while affordability was a factor, it was losing control of the investment property to renters that had led landlords to sell.
Multiple agents said their latest reports showed between 15 and 20 per cent of landlords were selling up their investment properties because managing them had become too hard, reducing the number of houses on the rental market.
PH Property principal Brad Hinton said no matter the amount of government intervention, the costs were likely to be passed on to the tenant.
“Some of these costs that have been put to property owners or investors, such as your land tax, your minimum standards, you’ve got to do inspections every 12 months, every 18 months, and every two years for certain compliance issues,” he said.
“Those costs will eventually get passed on to the tenants.
“Because if it doesn’t, people just won’t buy investment property and all of a sudden, we’re going to have a much worse rental crisis situation than what we’re already in.”
Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) director Quentin Killian said he was concerned the Victorian government would do greater damage to the housing market if it enacted housing policies such as rent freezes, rent caps, and axing the first home buyer’s grant without consulting the industry .
“We can tell them right now that things like rent freezes and rent controls are absolutely deleterious because while it may appear to be a nice idea in the short term, the longer-term impact of that is absolutely deleterious to any rental market,” he said.
The rental vacancy rate in Victoria, according to the institute, is at 2.1 per cent — the lowest level since February 2020.
Tougher rules
The federal government’s Housing Australia Future Fund Bill will go to a vote in October after Labor reintroduced the legislation to the House of Representatives.
The bill would fund social and affordable housing, but last month the Greens and Coalition denied the legislation in the Senate.
If the Senate again refuses to pass the legislation the government could trigger a double dissolution to send Australians to the polls early.
The Greens want stronger rights for renters to limit rent increases and freeze rents.
Data for June from property analysts, CoreLogic, shows houses in Australia are spending, on average, 20 days on the market.
That’s no different to 12 months ago but nine days less than in March 2020.
CoreLogic director of research, Tim Lawless, said with the rental supply level still quite tight in Australia, it was “very much a landlord’s market”.
Mr Lawless said while there was some growth in the number of houses available for renters in some places, such as Hobart in Tasmania, there was still “a scarcity of rental suppliers” more generally.
“So, I think for a lot of renters, they probably do still feel a sense of urgency, although that does seem to be diminishing,” he said.
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