The charts that show how Australia’s rental market got so broken
Sometimes, being a renter in Australia just plain sucks.
You might be forced to move over and over again, unable to secure a long-term lease. You might be waiting months for repairs, only to get the “landlord special”. Maybe, like many in Australia, you’ve had your rent hiked by an eye-watering amount.
Perhaps you’ve needed to make a drastic change, like 44-year-old Stephen Papadopolous, a renter of 20 years, who recently moved back in with his parents after his landlord sold his apartment of five years in Sydney’s Dulwich Hill.
“I absolutely love the area, I have so many friends close by,” he says. “I tried looking close by in the Inner West for apartments and went to a few open inspections, and the queues and the crowd that turned up was just crazy.
“For five years, I was renting a two-bedroom apartment on my own for $400 a week with no rent increase, and then to have to go find one-bedroom apartments for over $600 was a bit of a shock.”
He’s now living in his parents’ Campbelltown home, on the outskirts of metropolitan Sydney, and is in no rush to rejoin rental inspection queues. “I would never rent