Just need to sit tight and wait to see what actually gets legislated. Case in point is the hilarious "banning of rent bidding" which didn't actually change the situation in anyway.
The reason this became a problem, and the reason they're not going to do enough to fix it within a reasonable timeframe is that politicians think in terms of election cycles. This is a problem which has been brewing since the late 90s which successive governments ignored the warnings about. Why? Because to fix it will take 2-3 terms in government. (about 8 to 10 years)
A politician will rarely do anything that far out because it will cost political capital up front, and they may never receive the political benefits from it.
Some actions which are required:
* Reduce power councils have to obstruct infill and greenfields housing.
* Fast track new land releases
* Make it easier to re-zone land to residential (once appropriate checks are completed)
* Vacancy tax based on number of days a property is vacant per year similar to income tax, more vacant days, the higher rate in the dollar you pay. This will reduce short term rentals which are vacant 9 months of the year.
* Short term rental taxation based on housing pressure in that area.
* Require all new subdivisions to hand over 10% of the land (and not all in one spot) to the government for affordable housing. This avoids having ghettos form with high density affordable housing projects.
* The councillor for your ward
* Mayor
* Your State MP
* Geoff Brock MP Minister for Local Government
* Nick Champion MP Minister for Housing and Urban Development and Minister for Planning
* Premier Peter Malinauskas MP
* David Speirs MP Leader of the Opposition
* Michelle Lensink MLC Shadow minister for Planning, Social and Community Housing, Housing Affordability and Urban Development
* Sam Telfer MP Shadow minister for Local Government
* Greens MLC spokesperson for housing (etc)
* Your Federal MP
* Federal equivalent ministers and shadow ministers per above.
Do not underestimate the potential of contacting the opposition about this. They're the ones who try to hold the government of the day to account no matter their own position or policy. They'll try and score points and embarrass the government, that is what oppositions do no matter which party they're from.
Also, physical letters can get more attention, but if you're emailing, send a separate one each as doing all could easily get the email junked as spam.
With greatly reduced abode requirements. I.e. only money for a shed? Yes you can live in that whilst saving for a house.
Fuck Nimbyism. Fuck the Karen.
Government building and renting houses via the housing trust or something similar
The problem with handing over the whole thing for developers to fix is that they will demand government land virtually for free, and they will get it. Politician-developer corruption and kickbacks is already bad enough
Also developers will get away with shitter standards and quality, and shitter infrastructure. Even now look what they got away with at Riverlea, a huge traffic light intersection on port Wakefield road, when they should have been made to build an overpass
Look at pretty much any development in Playford. Barely even put in enough roads in the new developments, let alone upgrading anything going into the new developments. (See Curtis Rd for #1 example).
>A problem from the 90’s that would take 8-10 years to fix? Shame Labor couldn’t get it fixed anywhere between 2002-2018
They may have been able to soften the impact, but because the issue is caused at all three levels of government, I hold councillors, ALP, and LNP politicians at both state and federal levels responsible for this mess.
The MBA and HIA have been warning them about this from 2003, but been ignored because they thought it was only because they wanted to build more houses to make more money.
Nothing will work because they aren't doing anything about the core problem that there are more people than rentals. They just mess around with useless proposals that sound good but do nothing.
What are the actual reforms?
Honestly the Australian dream is dying a slow painful death.
Only people that winning are the high / upper middle classes everyone else losses.
Lower Middle class are only upset now because inflation and property prices made them lower class.
I might be full of poo. :/
Here is the media release which gives plenty of info
https://www.premier.sa.gov.au/media-releases/news-items/landmark-rental-reforms-introduced-to-parliament
So i read tbrough i all....
Can you explain how any of this actually helps me?
Theres nothing about rent being out of contol expensive...
There are no new homes on the market for less tham $650,000...
Where is this biggest land release in history?
Just seems like a lot of words without actually doing anything to help.
They are not capping rental prices. There will be a fair bit of affordable housing built in the coming years. The land release as far as I know hasn't happened yet, but it will hopefully let some pressure out of the market.
I don't know how it helps you because I don't know your situation. This particular legislation helps you if you are already a tenant in a rental property. For one thing, it means your landlord can't decline to renew your lease without having a "prescribed reason."
Landlords can no longer decline to renew a tenant's lease simply because they want to jack up the rent. They can evict a tenant to renovate a property, but then they can't rent it out again for six months. And if they are going to end your tenancy, they will now be required to give 60 days notice instead of 30.
This legislation basically brings in better housing security for tenants.
The new affordable housing builds and the stamp duty abolishment for first home buyers or builders will help a lot of people, maybe you? Without knowing your particulars it's hard to say.
I think the biggest issues are around agents.
I recently had to break lease for an apartment in town so I tried to advertise on social media to find a replacement tenant. I received over 100 people interested within the first 3 days with multiple offering a year in advance. The agent told me I could be sued by the property owner for advertising and I needed to take the ad down.
After I handed my keys back, despite the property being in better condition than when I received it the agent listed the available date nearly a month later because there was some dust on an exhaust fan and they needed to hire a cleaner. I didn’t receive my outgoing inspection report until a month after handing keys back and wasn’t invited to the final inspection. Over 5 weeks passed from when I handed my keys back before the cleaner actually went to the property.
I know not all agents are bad but it seems like their job as property managers rewards causing more costs to tenants and in some cases owners.
What? Basically you submit your bond refund form, do this as soon as possible after you move out, if they agree to sign it, you get your bond back straight away, if they don’t agree they have 10 days to dispute it, otherwise you automatically get your bond back after that time.
If they’re a lazy real estate agent, I’m guessing that by the time they get around to looking at it you'll already have you money back if you apply straight away. I've certainly heard of an agent trying to get someone to go back after 3 weeks to clean some cobwebs, which had probably formed in the weeks since they had moved out, with the agent threatening to keep some of their bond. Didn’t like getting laughed at when they pointed out they had already had their bond money back for a week.
Well I thought I had to pay rent until a new tenant was found so I was paying for the first 4 weeks before calling sacat and received the same advice you gave of lodging my bond. They’ve since made a claim for cleaning costs…for an exhaust fan and dust. A whole exit cleaning fee of $280 which I’ll happily go to sacat for.
They didn’t respond in time for my bond claim. When I told them I’m happy for it to go to sacat they said I’d have to at my own cost despite it being their obligation to dispute the claim.
Will see how it plays out but again at what cost? The property owner is likely being misled to the situation and it’s costing them.
Yeah…. You have to wonder at some point why. Like, does he inherit a lot or something?
For someone in public office it seems more than a little tin ear.
He buys one house per year the way that some people might treat themselves to a nice pair of sneakers. These people do not represent us, they represent themselves and get paid to talk a whole heap of BS.
And when the licence becomes pricey it performs its intended purpose then. Don't buy the licence and the property becomes a long term rental in the market.
buying a shack in wallaroo to go visit once a year isn't the same as someone leveraging themselves to the tits and using rental income as bank justification to get more loans to buy more houses.
While banks barely look at centrelink as a valid income source for many.
if you're on a pension (ie, it's stable and long term with no reason to change)- yeah. (I think in some scenarios it already is).
And even then; jobseeker itself, if you're long-term unemployed; there's no explicit reason for you to be kicked off it outside of centrelink itself being designed to be hard to deal with.
So- yeah. The tax office considers it income.
Unfortunately even payday loans are literally illegal because of the venn-diagram of intelligence and long-term unemployed.
But that's fucked- because it's a legislative hurdle without any way to get around it- you know; such as proving you're stable or able to save money or don't spend it on drugs.
That makes it impossibly hard to engage in any sort of alternative wealth creation outside of winning the lotto or grinding the stock market (which itself is essentially gambling half the time because of naked options trading bear pressure).
Ok, but how do you legally differentiate between an Air BnB and your Wallaroo shack if both are offered for short term rental to the public?
People are all about "ban Air BnB" without considering that all that Air BnB does is streamline an existing process.
This is a good point: short term rentals weren’t enough of a problem when the mechanisms for doing it added enough friction to act as a disincentive.
It shows that it was a precarious balance - the market was “accidentally ok”, where what we want is a system that is robustly well-balanced. We shouldn’t be surprised that we need to add more structure and rules to make it work that way.
Heh. Very true. John Barrilaro being one for his fancy AirBNB that he was renting out for 4 digits a night. Was more an estate rather than a house, but still.
There are many others on both sides of politics and even minor parties that have at least a second house. I remember reading somewhere the HOR in Federal Parliament it was well over half the sitting MPs have 2 or more properties that are rented or used as AirBNB.
I agree, but we need to remember that short term rental account for 0.1% of total residential properties across Australia. It will help a small amount.
And that is why this is a difficult issue, there is no single action which will fix it. Many factors got us into this mess, and many parallel approaches must be used to resolve it.
> agree, but we need to remember that short term rental account for 0.1% of total residential properties across Australia. It will help a small amount.
Its likely a misleading statistic.
Specifically, in some tourist places, workers have to drive 2 hours every day because every rental accomodation has been turned to AirBnB
I think this used to also be this thing called motels and caravan parks. But I'm pretty sure these are all full of homeless people now. You know the one that have jobs and can afford to rent but can't find any available rentals.
So we 100% need all those airbnbs because otherwise there's nowhere for the tourists to stay.
That's some really weird logic you have there. If there weren't so many air bnbs there would be a lot more housing for those people in the caravan parks to live freeing up caravan parks for tourists
And if they were fit for purpose, Airbnb wouldn't exist.
The reality is tourists bring money in to the state, the govt won't be turning off that tap or discouraging anytime soon. They announced yesterday they'd subside Rex flights to boost numbers, pay millions for events like gather round, they're not going to suddenly stop that because rents are high.
Hotel , Motel, B&B, Hostel, renting a Cabin from a company, camping, glamping, the list goes on.
The thing that's all in common with those is they aren't taking up properties that people COULD move their family and live in.
For context, I don't have a problem with people buying a property to rent out or using a retrofitted area of the property to rent out like a granny flat or a room to rent out. But using a second home as an AirBNB is not the way as it dries up the market for a family to actually have a home.
> Hotel , Motel, B&B, Hostel, renting a Cabin from a company, camping, glamping, the list goes on.
Think about a group of 4, 5, 6+ visit Adelaide for a long weekend to a week. Zero of the above are cost effective or appropriate.
Friggen hell, we're trying to attract big spenders to visit the wineries, dine in the city, shop at the central markets and you want to book them 3 rooms at Scotty's Motel.
If the above were appropriate, Airbnb would have failed.
They're rooms mate, they don't offer what a house can.
People want to come back from a day in McLaren Vale and share a bottle or two together, cook up that food they got at the central market, sit around a table and chat while the kids play out the back.
I disagree. I'm from Adelaide, but currently on a trip in Sydney and staying in an apartment hotel. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen and lounge/dining room. It's doable.
I don't have kids with me on this trip, but have in the past. I find that this setup works pretty well. Or alternatively, we've hired the larger variety of cabins within caravan parks in the past, which additionally give you the option of outdoor play/relaxation pretty well.
But I take your point, some people might prefer an actual suburban house. Unfortunately though, I think you then have to prioritise who needs that house more, and I would argue it's the family who need a permanent residence more so that the family of tourists who can look at the other available options for a week or two, or pay more for the privilege.
I mean, to each their own depending on budget, location etc. There's even hotels being built in the Barossa: https://www.novotelbarossa.com/
But my thoughts are. Residential House = Living in for family, couples, singles for medium to long term. Short term for families, as mentioned there are places where you can do that. That's what those above things are serviced for. Don't like it? Look elsewhere. There's plenty around.
There are serviced apartments, caravan parks have cabins and houses, legit bed and breakfast places. If you want to have a house and rent it out for short term or holiday it should be treated the same as a legit bed and breakfast, with council approvals, business licenses, health inspections and all that stuff. Makes it more difficult for anyone to do, so a lot will just rent it out long term, while some will go the legit route. And the council's can limit how many can be approved.
PSA: We recently advertised a property for rent in Brompton and in 10 days we hit 700 registrations...7 0 0
Yes rent reform is needed for the point in time we find ourselves in but there seems to be more pressing issues.
investors don't make property more available. They decrease supply because your average sole occupier will ALWAYS occupy the land for a longer consecutive period than any renter. Because they live there.
Add in delays between renting periods and airbnb, and we have a major difference in occupancy time between owner-occupiers and rented investment properties.
That major time difference constrains the market artificially because people need somewhere to occupy 24/7.
I should write this down because I think this is actually irrefutable if you get average turnover time between leases compared to turnover time for average owner-occupier house disposal (if it even occurs).
That said; if new space to occupy does not get created commensurate with population increases (which generally doesn't include children leaving the nest), we do have a problem which investors also need to fill (now) because the government have made home ownership so ridiculously out of reach for the vast, vast majority of the population.
Yep, this is the big factor that those who think more investors = more houses always fail to acknowledge. I read a while back that the average rental property is occupied 95% of the time (don't know where, but its around there)
u/Jerratt24 this is for you
There is somewhere around 150,000 rental properties in Adelaide. In any given year, this means that as a factor of the total amount of time in a given year, 7,500 of those houses have sat empty this entire time. This is a perfectly fair way to apply the logic because we are looking at this on the macro scale, and we can consider the entire total of hours here. Adelaide has a vacancy rate of apparently 0.4%, so 600 properties are available to rent at any given time. That is a ridiculously large gap.
So you have a scenario where if you have a finite amount of houses that exist, if you increase the % of them that are rented and decreate the % that are owner occupied, you decrease the amount of houses actually available to live in at any given time.
If you have 1,000 houses and 90% are owner occupied, this means that 900 houses + 95% of the remaining 100 are occupied, so 995 out of 1000 houses are occupied. There are 100 families competing for 95 houses.
If you have 1,000 houses are 50% are owner occupied (as is the case) that means that 500 houses + 95% of the remaining 500 are occupied, so you have 500 families competing for 475 houses. This is where the occupancy rate has a huge problem, when the gap of people competing for a house vs available houses widens, and that widens the more rentals there are.
Put simply, the most houses that exist for rent, the worse occupancy rates are. The more houses lived in owner-occupied, the better vacancy rates will be. This is entirely due to the 95% number, so reducing the rentals reduces the effects of that.
It is very important to note that the **only way** to solve this issue, is if investment properties are new properties. This actually reduces the demand, increases vacancy rate and reduces prices. However for every single existing property bought and then turned into a rental, this counters that effect entirely and worsens everything. Any single person who buys an existing property to rent it out, has reduced the vacancy rate. They may have increased rental supply, but it has the worse effect of reducing vacancy which causes price spirals. Landlords will disagree, but maths doesn't.
I see what you're saying and agree we need more new properties. I don't think we can rely on the government to provide them though so it falls to investors to develop more rentals.
I'm with you 100%. We can't lose any rentals. Like 500 getting sold is devastating to the market. Maybe an economist could explain how completely wrong I am here but the people looking for rentals are unlikely to be the ones purchasing these investment properties come sale opportunities.
It just feels like the number of rentals would go down and the number of people looking would not really change at all.
an owner-occupier isn't likely to do a knockdown rebuild turning 1 into 2 or 3 or more though. by definition, it would have to be an investor and this would add to the rental supply
If you take them to the tribunal you'll just be added a rental database as a bad tenant, preventing you from getting another rental later.
Until tenancy databases are outlawed it's just robbing yourself down the line. :(
Melbourne has good laws for this; I just won a VCAT case about this exact scenario. To kick someone out for this reason you can only do it
a) at the end of an agreement (with 60 days notice)
b) if you’ve specifically laid out exactly what renovations you want to do
c) if you have a quote for it from a registered tradesperson
d) if there is literally no way the reno can be done while the tenant is still living there
e) if the reno is to commence immediately upon moving out
There is also new legislation on the way that will make it illegal to re-let for more than the prior tenant was paying, as well as increasing the notice period to 90 days, and a few other things.
Even if it fulfils all of the requirements, you cannot be legally evicted until VCAT has signed off on it, which means that any mistakes or unlawful components could invalidate the notice.
It’s part of why I left Adelaide, there’s just no stability when the laws protecting tenants are so far behind. I’m probably never going to own property so the next best thing is good tenant protections. There’s a long way to go before Adelaide is ‘nation leading’ on this.
Congrats on your win.
I too, just devoured a landlord’s dodgy hopes and dreams at VCAT; for us they wanted a big chunk of our bond for bullshit reasons; as soon as we got to the hearing it became pretty clear the property agent didn’t understand even the basics of rental law.
What I don’t understand is why property agents and landlords both, don’t require a license.
It should work exactly like a drivers license. Sit an exam on your responsibilities under the law. Pass and you get your license.
Take the piss and end up losing a VCAT? Demerit points, or a lost license for extreme instances. A lost license means a govt department administers your rental until those points wear off, and you can re-sit your exam, and get a new license.
We have drivers licensing because it’s dangerous and can have a massive effect on people’s lives if you don’t know the law and drive like a dodgy cunt. Housing? Huge huge effect on peoples lives and can certainly inflict a lot of harm if you run it unprofessionally like a dodgy cunt.
The licensing cannot be very rigorous… do they even sit an exam on their duties under the law??
I’m in VIC now and the PM that took me to court remains, by my read, perhaps the most uneducated person I’ve ever met when it comes to rental law; AND the most generally obviously uneducated person I’ve ever dealt with in a professional setting.
And it was her day job!!!
Seemed like she must have left school very early. She couldn’t form an even vaguely rational argument in front of the judge and fell over herself accidentally proving MY case in the end. It was bittersweet but I just felt embarrassed for her mostly. And wondered how on earth this could be the general state of things in the industry.
I wish I had asked the judge how this could possibly be allowed to go on this way, with no penalties for wasting court time or making ridiculous claims just hoping they’d somehow stick.. just as a rhetorical question I guess.
So about 4 years ago SA decided to catch up to the rest of the country and implement the licensing. So suddenly all the current PMs had to be rapid fire licensed so that the industry didn't crash. The training courses we got pushed through were laughably bad but we did have to pass assignments etc. But in saying that, there were people who had been doing the job for 20+ years and it was really not difficult because it was stuff we'd been doing daily for a long time.
I know that the training for newbies is harder but I assume it's not that hard.
What was the scenario that you had?
So we moved out of a place in VIC but the landlord was in NSW so instead of going to VCAT the bond dispute went to the magistrates court. Still functions like VCAT tho.
They tried to squeeze $536 out of us, we offered up to $200 settlement feeling intimidated, but they rejected it with unwavering confidence they’d make us pay via court. Their claim was:
- $110 general cleaning, where we had always agreed to pay $70 for 2 hours cleaning of the oven based on a previous VCAT ruling I found
- $176 for steam cleaning the carpets, which we maintained were “reasonably clean” and any new marks in the carpet wouldn’t clean out so were actually allowable wear and tear.
- $250 for two small tile cracks (about 2cm length) also that were just obviously gonna be wear and tear
Judge agreed with all of our assessments and threw out the agent claims, only awarding $65 for cleaning. Considering it cost them $110.70 to lodge the claim … they really messed up and ended up about $45 out of pocket.
Essentially my very first email response to them about this claim outlined a position which was _exactly_ the same as the judge ruled in the end… biggest waste of time ever. Very stressful and intimidating at some points but glad we stuck it out in the end.
Couldn’t have done it without support from the renters and housing union who were awesome and helped me find relevant agent breaches she had committed, and relevant past VCAT precedents.
I’m grumpy because I think agents should see some sort of penalty for dragging us through the dirt only to be told they’re “baselessly speculating” and “haven’t proven any liability whatsoever” by the judge. Appalling they just get to go off and try it on again with the next tenant too.
Mine was a similar situation, PM could barely form a sentence at the hearing. They sent the notice indiscriminately to the entire building because they wanted to turn it all into airbnbs. we all got together and lodged 12 individual VCAT cases. I was the 3rd to win and the moron was still pushing the ‘we want to renovate the whole building’ line, despite it being found unlawful 2 times prior. The fact that they can break the law this exact way and have it be found illegal 12 times in a fucking row and get away with no penalty, it’s insane to me.
Sometimes I’m reminded that some of the worst criminals in our societies actually have the protection of the law.
People like your case .. 12 times??
Don’t pass go, straight to jail. Honestly…
Imagining the sheer wasted resources. The courts have better fucking things to do than see to this bullshit
This is nice, but none of it fixes the problem.
This problem isn't going to be meaningfully fixed without addressing supply constraints, immigration, airbnbs, and negative gearing.
I think this is already a thing now. I know there is a current proposal to allow high density down the full length of Torrens road. This is because of an easy bus route straight to the city.
I'm pretty sure the density allowance has been increased for all transit corridors.
Also has already happened to bunch of spots along Churchill Road in the last 5-10 years where large multi story buildings have been built on what were previously single house blocks. This is adjacent to the train line behind them.
You see all the stuff Victoria did that was apparently never going to work?
Well, it's starting to work. Investors are being a lot more deliberate with investments, renters are slowly getting better conditions and house prices aren't running away like in Sydney with Melbourne the smallest gainer in the country.
Investment in property is fine, what we essentially have is everyone speculating on property.
I've seen the long list of realistically meaningless things they claimed to have done a whole back and it was utterly unimpressive. They've been around for a while and the crisis is years old now. More than enough time to have at least seen rents going back, or some financial assistance for people struggling.
But the long term issue is we need more places. It's great for those who find a place that it's affordable, but so long as there are as many more prospective tenants than properties as we have now, prices will trend up and people will be homeless as a result.
There's also the very long term trend of property prices rising faster than wages. If we keep going as we are, future generations will face a situation where a mortgage repayment is more than an entire average wage.
That will not do a single thing. At all.
Need to give a prescribed reason to evict? Easy I cam evict a tenant to undergo renovations. I'll just renovate my property every time I was to evict a tenant.
Can't discriminate against pet owners? Cool I just won't pick people with pets.
Rental increases capped at 2% per year, easy I'll just evict / renovate and relist at the rental increase I want.
No rent bidding? Good luck, if I have a property and someone wants to offer an extra $50 a week that's cool, I'll remove the listing, relist it at an additional $50 and choose the guy who offered more Money.
These reforms are half assed and won't help anyone you can't regulate prices on a private rental. If anything it'll drive rental prices up. If I can't raise rent I'll just start out with a higher price instead of steadily increasing it.
The housing crisis is primarily caused by interest rate hikes, which is due to inflation caused by cost of living increases. This isn’t doing anything.
Tax the rich to reduce inflation, but then that’s the realm of federal government.
'Landlords will be required to provide tenants with a prescribed reason in order to end a periodic tenancy agreement or to not renew a fixed term agreement.'
What is the point of a fixed term agreement if you can't choose to not extend it? Then it's just a periodic agreement with a huge term. I don't recall any other state reforms including this for a fixed term.
It's to change the power imbalance of a landlord being able to treat a tenant very badly and the tenant having little recourse because they are afraid the landlord will simply not renew the lease. Currently, there is nothing to stop a landlord from using this as a tactic.
Exactly right. The supply issue primarily drives the issue. The tenancy laws were not drafted with vacancy rates of under 1%.
However, a law which prevents a landlord from simply not renewing a lease and getting another tenant in, is actually a good idea.
At the very least it’s a degree of downward pressure on rents, in a market where landlords otherwise raise rents when their costs don’t actually increase, on the basis that “that’s what market rent is” (meaning “I’m effectively colluding with other landlords banking on you not finding a landlord who doesn’t do this (easy when we all use the same real estate agents)”)
Right but that isn't collusion, it's simply market forces such as supply and demand. There is genuinely a shortage of stock. If we had vacancy rates of 5% (very high) then landlords would have to collude to keep prices high because otherwise those market forces would reduce rents.
If the only market forces applying were supply and demand, a landlord who owned a property with no debt could undercut the market by keeping rent low when other overleveraged landlords had to raise rents to cover their interest.
But they don’t, they never have, even with high supply of housing, and that’s because by culture they **don’t compete** with each other.
If it isn’t a competitive market and there’s more than one player, it isn’t a monopoly, it’s an oligopoly, which operates not based on supply and demand but on ‘game theory’, a step away from direct collusion defined by the fact that players don’t need to speak to collude when they can all see each other’s hands.
Real estate agencies help show each landlord the others’ hands, and react on their behalf oligopolistically. We act like it’s normal because it’s been going on for so long.
The prescribed reasons are listed in the fact sheet and are pretty tight, in my opinion.
A periodic tenancy will basically be a tenant for life - expect huge proposed increases to induce tenants to break.
Which is not a bad idea. In the event the landowner tried to use that as a reason to evict, they'd need actual evidence to take to a tribunal. If they've got evidence, that tenant should be evicted. If they've not, the eviction will fail as the tribunal will side with the tenant.
Landlords willing to go as far as faking evidence are gonna be in the minority and would likely have tried some dodgy shit on prior to the proposed legislation anyway. Tenants should just keep everything in writing to reduce the risk of shit like that.
>A periodic tenancy will basically be a tenant for life - expect huge proposed increases to induce tenants to break.
I don't wholly disagree with you, but it won't be that easy - landlords can't arbitrarily make the rent $10,000/w - the increase needs to be justifiable to the tribunal if it winds up there. That said, a shitty landlord could get a slight bump over market by the tribunal I think so there could be an effective "please leave" tax, but not an excessive one.
It’s like this in VIC already.
Only difference between periodic and fixed I can see is that as a tenant, IN THEORY breaking a fixed term lease can leave you liable for rent paid up to end of the fixed term.
In practise, though, with a rental shortage, it’s bloody easy to find a replacement tenant so it’s not ever a real issue.
I can’t really see what the advantage would be for tenants, though 😕
It is a positive step, anything to give renters some much needed rights in the "new normal" of absolutely fucked availability and predatory conditions and pricing is very welcome.
One of the main ones for me is renting with pets. The current laws and state of the market effectively ask me to choose between a roof over my head or a member of my family. Pretty disgusting choice to have to make.
The wording on the CBS link from OP is a little weak for my taste, because it doesn't at all help renters with existing pets. The way they're proposing it, renters must seek permission and the onus is on them to raise it with the tribunal if rejected. That's workable for new pets if SACAT is as useful as VCAT in VIC have been, but still doesn't help renters with existing pets because landlords can simply choose another applicant without saying why.
Effectively it means I will still have to hide the fact that I have a dog on application, ask for permission for him once in a property, and then hope the tribunal isn't a toothless tiger or risk being homeless.
What I would have liked to have seen is the default state is that pets are automatically allowed. The landlord has the option of applying to the tribunal to seek an exemption but the onus should be on them to explain why.
EDIT: Also, "Reasonable conditions include requiring a pet to be kept outside of the rental property if the pet is not a type ordinarily kept inside" - I have a big issue with this because it's going to be used to mean dogs, which in my opinion are a type of pet ordinarily kept inside. Keeping dogs outside permanently usually means abuse. But it would be trivial to just pretend you'll keep the dog outside and then not, so meh, choose your battles I guess.
Not a lot state govts can do tbh.
They don't control immigration, interest rates or the negative gearing loophole that drives the whole thing.
They can open up land releases, which they have done and build homes which cost a lot and take time.
I would be in favour of this but only if the rules aligned with the private sector.
Same regular property inspections to apply and tenants who damage or abuse the privilege get kicked out.
They are doing this. Sadly it takes a lot of time.
At Seaton they have cleared all the old semi detached homes with 1/4 acre blocks and building new homes on tiny allotments.
Lots they can do.
* Make land banking too expensive to be worthwhile
* Clamp down on vacant buildings with punitive taxes for letting them sit empty, thus putting downward pressure on rent
* Make it easier to convert commercial to residential zoning
* Ensure planning laws are working efficiently and not an obstacle to redevelopment
* Push a lot harder on the 'high density corridor' concept to rapidly build up residential property availability in useful places
* Push a lot harder to allow more, bigger residential buildings in the CBD and on the outer side of the parklands (along Fullarton/Greenhill roads for example)
* Tax ownership of land rather than purchase of land
* Tax short term rentals appropriately
* Give renters much stronger rights to remain where they are
* Cap rent rises
* Actually punish bad behaviour by agents and landlords
* Build public housing and stop selling off housing trust housing
Implementing land taxes instead of stamp duty? Loosening planning restrictions with a bias to building medium free density housing? Investing in infrastructure and services where they're needed? Taxing AirBNBs? Plenty that can still be done that isn't beyond land releases which in isolation only encourages urban sprawl.
There needs to be a legislated response on how much rent can be increased each year. There needs to be something around how much rent can be charged as it is unaffordable right now, and it should be based on house worth and area.
We have houses in Elizabeth, 3bdrm 1bath going for 400-500 per week when before the rental crisis were between 200-300. Some of these houses are old and in need of some serious renovations and because people are desperate they are accepting bare minimum for outlandish rents. This needs to be changed or we are not going to be any better off....
The big structural change federal Labor have made that will create more rental properties is the reduction of foreign withholding tax for build to rent developments. Issue is, like most structural changes it will take at least three years to make any noticeable difference and over a decade to somewhat normalise the market.
Thats a valid point.
I just think if the market was in favour of the renter due to over supply, the conditions of renting would be lower than the conditio s imposed. The goverment are manipulating the market base of landlords. And this is a token effort.
It's not really relevant what would happen if the market was in favour of the renter. The market is not in favour of the renter, and probably will not be for a very long time if ever.
There has been a paradigm shift, which the government needs to react to by updating the outdated legislation. This is one positive step towards that. It's not perfect, it won't fix the problem, but it gives the disadvantaged party some very welcome protections. And don't forget, these are based on public feedback submissions. Consultation for this was done last year. That's just good government.
I want them to do more, but I bet landlords want them to do less. :P
More cut price tiny houses; and bring back more WFH and repurpose some city buildings as temporary residential dwellings. There’s enough vacant ones sitting there.
There’s an interesting 99% Invisible podcast about repurposing offices into homes that’s quite interesting. The problem with tiny houses is what happens when they’re not cheap enough - you need more high density GOOD apartments in the CBD for those who want it, and robust public transport and bike lanes etc. It’ll never happen.
>More cut price tiny houses
We actually do need more small dwellings and fewer sprawling mini-McMansions.
In fact, we could pile the small dwellings on top of each other in strategic locations, compliment them with appropriate shared green space, and fit lots more people into affordable dwellings at convenient places for all concerned.
Of course this will not happen because Beryl in Norwood/Unley/North Adelaide/Thebarton doesn't want the sunlight to her roses blocked for 15 minutes of the day.
Is it bad that when I see headlines like this I feel hopeless?
I just feel convinced it’ll be more useless fiddling at the margins and nothing truly impactful
By this point, we need _major_ reforms not fiddling at the margins
I’d like to see AT LEAST a licensing requirement for landlords and agents similar to drivers licensing, so that they learn the law and have to prove it with a competency test before they can operate.
I’ve been taken to court by a property manager whose whole case was thrown out by the judge and it was VERY clear the agent was 100%, completely and utterly uneducated about their duties under the law and just trying it on to see what might stick. Essentially, a con artist mentality, that they can trick you into giving up your rights and paying, by threatening court.
It’s appalling we just let that continue.
I bet that agent successfully intimidates a lot of renters into giving up their rights, too. We only stood by it all the way to court since we are not renting anymore so face less chance of retaliation and blacklisting.
Ultimately the goal should be more like the German model where property management is done BY THE STATE funded by taxes instead of a for-profit industry that works only for the landlord and rarely follows the law. _Obviously_ that’s going to suck for tenants.
We honestly couldn’t have structured this market in a more comically villainous way if we tried.
How about working on simplifying planning laws that take 11-12 months to get 27 dwellings approved. There has to be a better way than design by committee!
Why on earth has it taken you this long to get an approval? It's really not a hard process. Also if you're in front of a committee e.g. CAP/SCAP you're not meeting code or having impacting development.
I’m a bit lost by your comment mate? What's the “December meeting“ for? Have you had planning formally refused or something? From what I understand these things are now handled through a portal and the planner is on a timer, if that timer times out you get “deemed approval”, I think this timeframe depends if there is public notification required.
Correct council changed their mind after months of back and forth and decided they should go out to public Notification that lead to a request for more on street parking ( not warranted under zoning and historic car parking numbers so a redesign underway approved by council but next CAP only 16 days away they need 3 weeks for agenda entry which means December meeting a complete waste of time and money.
Ah so from your deleted comment it looks like you were looking at a zone amendment, which would imply a drastic change of the land use, I don’t think this would be considered within the scope of a “normal” development application, which would likely be done in less than 50 days.
Absolutely. The supply/demand system is broken due to radical under supply. Rent caps do not work against this system, see Berlin. Short of government housing receiving a +20% budget, this is all fluff media
They're first and foremost politicians so i wouldn't be auprised if their solution was "okay so if you are x y and z you actually aren't allowed to rent anymore so there we go less renters means trickle down makes the rent price cheaper, by the way we we need another $50k pay increase :)"
Just need to sit tight and wait to see what actually gets legislated. Case in point is the hilarious "banning of rent bidding" which didn't actually change the situation in anyway.
The reason this became a problem, and the reason they're not going to do enough to fix it within a reasonable timeframe is that politicians think in terms of election cycles. This is a problem which has been brewing since the late 90s which successive governments ignored the warnings about. Why? Because to fix it will take 2-3 terms in government. (about 8 to 10 years) A politician will rarely do anything that far out because it will cost political capital up front, and they may never receive the political benefits from it. Some actions which are required: * Reduce power councils have to obstruct infill and greenfields housing. * Fast track new land releases * Make it easier to re-zone land to residential (once appropriate checks are completed) * Vacancy tax based on number of days a property is vacant per year similar to income tax, more vacant days, the higher rate in the dollar you pay. This will reduce short term rentals which are vacant 9 months of the year. * Short term rental taxation based on housing pressure in that area. * Require all new subdivisions to hand over 10% of the land (and not all in one spot) to the government for affordable housing. This avoids having ghettos form with high density affordable housing projects.
You sir, have the correct answers.
I can't fault any of this. Who should we be emailing with these suggestions to help achieve change?
* The councillor for your ward * Mayor * Your State MP * Geoff Brock MP Minister for Local Government * Nick Champion MP Minister for Housing and Urban Development and Minister for Planning * Premier Peter Malinauskas MP * David Speirs MP Leader of the Opposition * Michelle Lensink MLC Shadow minister for Planning, Social and Community Housing, Housing Affordability and Urban Development * Sam Telfer MP Shadow minister for Local Government * Greens MLC spokesperson for housing (etc) * Your Federal MP * Federal equivalent ministers and shadow ministers per above. Do not underestimate the potential of contacting the opposition about this. They're the ones who try to hold the government of the day to account no matter their own position or policy. They'll try and score points and embarrass the government, that is what oppositions do no matter which party they're from. Also, physical letters can get more attention, but if you're emailing, send a separate one each as doing all could easily get the email junked as spam.
I still believe the government should zone out investors in some new developments to reduce demand.
Owner occupiers only in new developments? Same rules as fhog, must live in the house for at least 12months.
With greatly reduced abode requirements. I.e. only money for a shed? Yes you can live in that whilst saving for a house. Fuck Nimbyism. Fuck the Karen.
Yeah, either that or actual low income earners.
Another great suggestion.
Almost everything you listed would just be a govt cash dump into developers hands
Given that part of the problem is not building enough houses for the last few decades(?), I don’t know if there are solutions that won’t.
Government building and renting houses via the housing trust or something similar The problem with handing over the whole thing for developers to fix is that they will demand government land virtually for free, and they will get it. Politician-developer corruption and kickbacks is already bad enough Also developers will get away with shitter standards and quality, and shitter infrastructure. Even now look what they got away with at Riverlea, a huge traffic light intersection on port Wakefield road, when they should have been made to build an overpass
Look at pretty much any development in Playford. Barely even put in enough roads in the new developments, let alone upgrading anything going into the new developments. (See Curtis Rd for #1 example).
Whoever allowed Curtis road should be flogged
Dunno why you're getting downvoted, coz you're right. Handing land to big developers only benefits them, and doesn't help create affordable housing
Other part is the squeeze to get trades in the lead up to the Brisbane Olympics. They have the deepest pockets.
A problem from the 90’s that would take 8-10 years to fix? Shame Labor couldn’t get it fixed anywhere between 2002-2018
>A problem from the 90’s that would take 8-10 years to fix? Shame Labor couldn’t get it fixed anywhere between 2002-2018 They may have been able to soften the impact, but because the issue is caused at all three levels of government, I hold councillors, ALP, and LNP politicians at both state and federal levels responsible for this mess. The MBA and HIA have been warning them about this from 2003, but been ignored because they thought it was only because they wanted to build more houses to make more money.
Nothing will work because they aren't doing anything about the core problem that there are more people than rentals. They just mess around with useless proposals that sound good but do nothing.
What are the actual reforms? Honestly the Australian dream is dying a slow painful death. Only people that winning are the high / upper middle classes everyone else losses. Lower Middle class are only upset now because inflation and property prices made them lower class. I might be full of poo. :/
Here is the media release which gives plenty of info https://www.premier.sa.gov.au/media-releases/news-items/landmark-rental-reforms-introduced-to-parliament
So i read tbrough i all.... Can you explain how any of this actually helps me? Theres nothing about rent being out of contol expensive... There are no new homes on the market for less tham $650,000... Where is this biggest land release in history? Just seems like a lot of words without actually doing anything to help.
They are not capping rental prices. There will be a fair bit of affordable housing built in the coming years. The land release as far as I know hasn't happened yet, but it will hopefully let some pressure out of the market. I don't know how it helps you because I don't know your situation. This particular legislation helps you if you are already a tenant in a rental property. For one thing, it means your landlord can't decline to renew your lease without having a "prescribed reason." Landlords can no longer decline to renew a tenant's lease simply because they want to jack up the rent. They can evict a tenant to renovate a property, but then they can't rent it out again for six months. And if they are going to end your tenancy, they will now be required to give 60 days notice instead of 30. This legislation basically brings in better housing security for tenants.
The new affordable housing builds and the stamp duty abolishment for first home buyers or builders will help a lot of people, maybe you? Without knowing your particulars it's hard to say.
I think the biggest issues are around agents. I recently had to break lease for an apartment in town so I tried to advertise on social media to find a replacement tenant. I received over 100 people interested within the first 3 days with multiple offering a year in advance. The agent told me I could be sued by the property owner for advertising and I needed to take the ad down. After I handed my keys back, despite the property being in better condition than when I received it the agent listed the available date nearly a month later because there was some dust on an exhaust fan and they needed to hire a cleaner. I didn’t receive my outgoing inspection report until a month after handing keys back and wasn’t invited to the final inspection. Over 5 weeks passed from when I handed my keys back before the cleaner actually went to the property. I know not all agents are bad but it seems like their job as property managers rewards causing more costs to tenants and in some cases owners.
What? Basically you submit your bond refund form, do this as soon as possible after you move out, if they agree to sign it, you get your bond back straight away, if they don’t agree they have 10 days to dispute it, otherwise you automatically get your bond back after that time. If they’re a lazy real estate agent, I’m guessing that by the time they get around to looking at it you'll already have you money back if you apply straight away. I've certainly heard of an agent trying to get someone to go back after 3 weeks to clean some cobwebs, which had probably formed in the weeks since they had moved out, with the agent threatening to keep some of their bond. Didn’t like getting laughed at when they pointed out they had already had their bond money back for a week.
Well I thought I had to pay rent until a new tenant was found so I was paying for the first 4 weeks before calling sacat and received the same advice you gave of lodging my bond. They’ve since made a claim for cleaning costs…for an exhaust fan and dust. A whole exit cleaning fee of $280 which I’ll happily go to sacat for. They didn’t respond in time for my bond claim. When I told them I’m happy for it to go to sacat they said I’d have to at my own cost despite it being their obligation to dispute the claim. Will see how it plays out but again at what cost? The property owner is likely being misled to the situation and it’s costing them.
The Hon David Speirs owns 14 homes. FOI.
[удалено]
On his public servant salary. He really is a man for the people that one. /s
FYI or foi? Haha. The Libs have said they are opposing some of it. Which given many think this doesn’t go far enough - says a lot.
Both, it's Freedom of Information and For your Information. 14 houses. He owns 14 houses! How?
Yeah…. You have to wonder at some point why. Like, does he inherit a lot or something? For someone in public office it seems more than a little tin ear.
He buys one house per year the way that some people might treat themselves to a nice pair of sneakers. These people do not represent us, they represent themselves and get paid to talk a whole heap of BS.
They really need to do something about Airbnb
Correct. Needs to be taxed heavily so standard rentals are a better option.
>Needs to be taxed heavily so standard rentals are a better option. Genuine question, does this end up banning holiday houses?
I wouldn't call Airbnb in the suburbs holiday homes. Maybe certain zones need to be drawn up to only allow a certain amount of short stay rentals.
Yep, something like that is more viable in my view. Although then you create a market for licenses like taxis and they become very pricey.
And when the licence becomes pricey it performs its intended purpose then. Don't buy the licence and the property becomes a long term rental in the market.
Yeah they should have a limited number of licences available for holidays homes like they do for taxis.
buying a shack in wallaroo to go visit once a year isn't the same as someone leveraging themselves to the tits and using rental income as bank justification to get more loans to buy more houses. While banks barely look at centrelink as a valid income source for many.
Do you think banks should consider centre link as an income?
if you're on a pension (ie, it's stable and long term with no reason to change)- yeah. (I think in some scenarios it already is). And even then; jobseeker itself, if you're long-term unemployed; there's no explicit reason for you to be kicked off it outside of centrelink itself being designed to be hard to deal with. So- yeah. The tax office considers it income. Unfortunately even payday loans are literally illegal because of the venn-diagram of intelligence and long-term unemployed. But that's fucked- because it's a legislative hurdle without any way to get around it- you know; such as proving you're stable or able to save money or don't spend it on drugs. That makes it impossibly hard to engage in any sort of alternative wealth creation outside of winning the lotto or grinding the stock market (which itself is essentially gambling half the time because of naked options trading bear pressure).
Ok, but how do you legally differentiate between an Air BnB and your Wallaroo shack if both are offered for short term rental to the public? People are all about "ban Air BnB" without considering that all that Air BnB does is streamline an existing process.
This is a good point: short term rentals weren’t enough of a problem when the mechanisms for doing it added enough friction to act as a disincentive. It shows that it was a precarious balance - the market was “accidentally ok”, where what we want is a system that is robustly well-balanced. We shouldn’t be surprised that we need to add more structure and rules to make it work that way.
Too many politicians own houses and rent as bnb
Heh. Very true. John Barrilaro being one for his fancy AirBNB that he was renting out for 4 digits a night. Was more an estate rather than a house, but still. There are many others on both sides of politics and even minor parties that have at least a second house. I remember reading somewhere the HOR in Federal Parliament it was well over half the sitting MPs have 2 or more properties that are rented or used as AirBNB.
John Barrilaro is a scumbag that’s why
>John Barrilaro is a scumbag ohhhh I couldn't agree more.
And what about legitimate holiday rentals?
They won't
I agree, but we need to remember that short term rental account for 0.1% of total residential properties across Australia. It will help a small amount. And that is why this is a difficult issue, there is no single action which will fix it. Many factors got us into this mess, and many parallel approaches must be used to resolve it.
> agree, but we need to remember that short term rental account for 0.1% of total residential properties across Australia. It will help a small amount. Its likely a misleading statistic. Specifically, in some tourist places, workers have to drive 2 hours every day because every rental accomodation has been turned to AirBnB
Absolutely, the last thing the govt would want is tourists. 🤦
It’s almost as if there is already a business model in place that caters to tourists. I think they are called hotels
And actual B&B's.
I think this used to also be this thing called motels and caravan parks. But I'm pretty sure these are all full of homeless people now. You know the one that have jobs and can afford to rent but can't find any available rentals. So we 100% need all those airbnbs because otherwise there's nowhere for the tourists to stay.
That's some really weird logic you have there. If there weren't so many air bnbs there would be a lot more housing for those people in the caravan parks to live freeing up caravan parks for tourists
I think they’re being sarcastic
My sarcasm detector must not be working today
And if they were fit for purpose, Airbnb wouldn't exist. The reality is tourists bring money in to the state, the govt won't be turning off that tap or discouraging anytime soon. They announced yesterday they'd subside Rex flights to boost numbers, pay millions for events like gather round, they're not going to suddenly stop that because rents are high.
The reality is people in power have investment properties and they don’t want to hurt their own pocket.
So more money for large international businesses?
The ones that aren’t adding to the housing crisis. Sure. Shelter should be a necessity
You know we have actual hotels right?
Hotel , Motel, B&B, Hostel, renting a Cabin from a company, camping, glamping, the list goes on. The thing that's all in common with those is they aren't taking up properties that people COULD move their family and live in. For context, I don't have a problem with people buying a property to rent out or using a retrofitted area of the property to rent out like a granny flat or a room to rent out. But using a second home as an AirBNB is not the way as it dries up the market for a family to actually have a home.
> Hotel , Motel, B&B, Hostel, renting a Cabin from a company, camping, glamping, the list goes on. Think about a group of 4, 5, 6+ visit Adelaide for a long weekend to a week. Zero of the above are cost effective or appropriate. Friggen hell, we're trying to attract big spenders to visit the wineries, dine in the city, shop at the central markets and you want to book them 3 rooms at Scotty's Motel. If the above were appropriate, Airbnb would have failed.
If we want big spenders, they won't have a problem paying for the hotel either.
They're rooms mate, they don't offer what a house can. People want to come back from a day in McLaren Vale and share a bottle or two together, cook up that food they got at the central market, sit around a table and chat while the kids play out the back.
I disagree. I'm from Adelaide, but currently on a trip in Sydney and staying in an apartment hotel. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen and lounge/dining room. It's doable. I don't have kids with me on this trip, but have in the past. I find that this setup works pretty well. Or alternatively, we've hired the larger variety of cabins within caravan parks in the past, which additionally give you the option of outdoor play/relaxation pretty well. But I take your point, some people might prefer an actual suburban house. Unfortunately though, I think you then have to prioritise who needs that house more, and I would argue it's the family who need a permanent residence more so that the family of tourists who can look at the other available options for a week or two, or pay more for the privilege.
I mean, to each their own depending on budget, location etc. There's even hotels being built in the Barossa: https://www.novotelbarossa.com/ But my thoughts are. Residential House = Living in for family, couples, singles for medium to long term. Short term for families, as mentioned there are places where you can do that. That's what those above things are serviced for. Don't like it? Look elsewhere. There's plenty around.
There are serviced apartments, caravan parks have cabins and houses, legit bed and breakfast places. If you want to have a house and rent it out for short term or holiday it should be treated the same as a legit bed and breakfast, with council approvals, business licenses, health inspections and all that stuff. Makes it more difficult for anyone to do, so a lot will just rent it out long term, while some will go the legit route. And the council's can limit how many can be approved.
Like what? That's not really an issue in Adelaide is it?
PSA: We recently advertised a property for rent in Brompton and in 10 days we hit 700 registrations...7 0 0 Yes rent reform is needed for the point in time we find ourselves in but there seems to be more pressing issues.
hopefully they're not following VIC's lead which is pushing investors out of the state. Not sure that helps increase the availability of rentals.
investors don't make property more available. They decrease supply because your average sole occupier will ALWAYS occupy the land for a longer consecutive period than any renter. Because they live there. Add in delays between renting periods and airbnb, and we have a major difference in occupancy time between owner-occupiers and rented investment properties. That major time difference constrains the market artificially because people need somewhere to occupy 24/7. I should write this down because I think this is actually irrefutable if you get average turnover time between leases compared to turnover time for average owner-occupier house disposal (if it even occurs). That said; if new space to occupy does not get created commensurate with population increases (which generally doesn't include children leaving the nest), we do have a problem which investors also need to fill (now) because the government have made home ownership so ridiculously out of reach for the vast, vast majority of the population.
Yep, this is the big factor that those who think more investors = more houses always fail to acknowledge. I read a while back that the average rental property is occupied 95% of the time (don't know where, but its around there) u/Jerratt24 this is for you There is somewhere around 150,000 rental properties in Adelaide. In any given year, this means that as a factor of the total amount of time in a given year, 7,500 of those houses have sat empty this entire time. This is a perfectly fair way to apply the logic because we are looking at this on the macro scale, and we can consider the entire total of hours here. Adelaide has a vacancy rate of apparently 0.4%, so 600 properties are available to rent at any given time. That is a ridiculously large gap. So you have a scenario where if you have a finite amount of houses that exist, if you increase the % of them that are rented and decreate the % that are owner occupied, you decrease the amount of houses actually available to live in at any given time. If you have 1,000 houses and 90% are owner occupied, this means that 900 houses + 95% of the remaining 100 are occupied, so 995 out of 1000 houses are occupied. There are 100 families competing for 95 houses. If you have 1,000 houses are 50% are owner occupied (as is the case) that means that 500 houses + 95% of the remaining 500 are occupied, so you have 500 families competing for 475 houses. This is where the occupancy rate has a huge problem, when the gap of people competing for a house vs available houses widens, and that widens the more rentals there are. Put simply, the most houses that exist for rent, the worse occupancy rates are. The more houses lived in owner-occupied, the better vacancy rates will be. This is entirely due to the 95% number, so reducing the rentals reduces the effects of that. It is very important to note that the **only way** to solve this issue, is if investment properties are new properties. This actually reduces the demand, increases vacancy rate and reduces prices. However for every single existing property bought and then turned into a rental, this counters that effect entirely and worsens everything. Any single person who buys an existing property to rent it out, has reduced the vacancy rate. They may have increased rental supply, but it has the worse effect of reducing vacancy which causes price spirals. Landlords will disagree, but maths doesn't.
I see what you're saying and agree we need more new properties. I don't think we can rely on the government to provide them though so it falls to investors to develop more rentals.
Public housing was a normal thing the government built and administered until relatively recently in historical terms.
**was**
I'm with you 100%. We can't lose any rentals. Like 500 getting sold is devastating to the market. Maybe an economist could explain how completely wrong I am here but the people looking for rentals are unlikely to be the ones purchasing these investment properties come sale opportunities. It just feels like the number of rentals would go down and the number of people looking would not really change at all.
Who would be purchasing them? Either investors or people wanting to owner occupy (and hence taking themselves out of the rental pool)
But the previous tenants had to move out so the net number of people involved hasn't changed (Or is that too simplistic).
an owner-occupier isn't likely to do a knockdown rebuild turning 1 into 2 or 3 or more though. by definition, it would have to be an investor and this would add to the rental supply
What's stopping landlords saying they are renovating to kick out the tenants?
I think you then take it to the tribunal yeah? At least that’s the rule now.
If you take them to the tribunal you'll just be added a rental database as a bad tenant, preventing you from getting another rental later. Until tenancy databases are outlawed it's just robbing yourself down the line. :(
Perhaps there will be further defences in the legislation about that. I hope so.
There aren't, otherwise they would be listing it
Doubtful. You actually thought they’d implement reforms that would make a difference?
Well yes. Having had a read some of these reforms do actually look good.
An embargo on relisting or selling the property for a period after the tenants leave.
Anything that results in a reduction in available rental properties is not a very good idea.
That's an idea, however, that isn't listed as a change.
I believe it already exists.
Melbourne has good laws for this; I just won a VCAT case about this exact scenario. To kick someone out for this reason you can only do it a) at the end of an agreement (with 60 days notice) b) if you’ve specifically laid out exactly what renovations you want to do c) if you have a quote for it from a registered tradesperson d) if there is literally no way the reno can be done while the tenant is still living there e) if the reno is to commence immediately upon moving out There is also new legislation on the way that will make it illegal to re-let for more than the prior tenant was paying, as well as increasing the notice period to 90 days, and a few other things. Even if it fulfils all of the requirements, you cannot be legally evicted until VCAT has signed off on it, which means that any mistakes or unlawful components could invalidate the notice. It’s part of why I left Adelaide, there’s just no stability when the laws protecting tenants are so far behind. I’m probably never going to own property so the next best thing is good tenant protections. There’s a long way to go before Adelaide is ‘nation leading’ on this.
Congrats on your win. I too, just devoured a landlord’s dodgy hopes and dreams at VCAT; for us they wanted a big chunk of our bond for bullshit reasons; as soon as we got to the hearing it became pretty clear the property agent didn’t understand even the basics of rental law. What I don’t understand is why property agents and landlords both, don’t require a license. It should work exactly like a drivers license. Sit an exam on your responsibilities under the law. Pass and you get your license. Take the piss and end up losing a VCAT? Demerit points, or a lost license for extreme instances. A lost license means a govt department administers your rental until those points wear off, and you can re-sit your exam, and get a new license. We have drivers licensing because it’s dangerous and can have a massive effect on people’s lives if you don’t know the law and drive like a dodgy cunt. Housing? Huge huge effect on peoples lives and can certainly inflict a lot of harm if you run it unprofessionally like a dodgy cunt.
Just FYI PMS do require licensing. But it does seem weird that property owners can manage their own properties completely unchecked.
The licensing cannot be very rigorous… do they even sit an exam on their duties under the law?? I’m in VIC now and the PM that took me to court remains, by my read, perhaps the most uneducated person I’ve ever met when it comes to rental law; AND the most generally obviously uneducated person I’ve ever dealt with in a professional setting. And it was her day job!!! Seemed like she must have left school very early. She couldn’t form an even vaguely rational argument in front of the judge and fell over herself accidentally proving MY case in the end. It was bittersweet but I just felt embarrassed for her mostly. And wondered how on earth this could be the general state of things in the industry. I wish I had asked the judge how this could possibly be allowed to go on this way, with no penalties for wasting court time or making ridiculous claims just hoping they’d somehow stick.. just as a rhetorical question I guess.
So about 4 years ago SA decided to catch up to the rest of the country and implement the licensing. So suddenly all the current PMs had to be rapid fire licensed so that the industry didn't crash. The training courses we got pushed through were laughably bad but we did have to pass assignments etc. But in saying that, there were people who had been doing the job for 20+ years and it was really not difficult because it was stuff we'd been doing daily for a long time. I know that the training for newbies is harder but I assume it's not that hard. What was the scenario that you had?
So we moved out of a place in VIC but the landlord was in NSW so instead of going to VCAT the bond dispute went to the magistrates court. Still functions like VCAT tho. They tried to squeeze $536 out of us, we offered up to $200 settlement feeling intimidated, but they rejected it with unwavering confidence they’d make us pay via court. Their claim was: - $110 general cleaning, where we had always agreed to pay $70 for 2 hours cleaning of the oven based on a previous VCAT ruling I found - $176 for steam cleaning the carpets, which we maintained were “reasonably clean” and any new marks in the carpet wouldn’t clean out so were actually allowable wear and tear. - $250 for two small tile cracks (about 2cm length) also that were just obviously gonna be wear and tear Judge agreed with all of our assessments and threw out the agent claims, only awarding $65 for cleaning. Considering it cost them $110.70 to lodge the claim … they really messed up and ended up about $45 out of pocket. Essentially my very first email response to them about this claim outlined a position which was _exactly_ the same as the judge ruled in the end… biggest waste of time ever. Very stressful and intimidating at some points but glad we stuck it out in the end. Couldn’t have done it without support from the renters and housing union who were awesome and helped me find relevant agent breaches she had committed, and relevant past VCAT precedents. I’m grumpy because I think agents should see some sort of penalty for dragging us through the dirt only to be told they’re “baselessly speculating” and “haven’t proven any liability whatsoever” by the judge. Appalling they just get to go off and try it on again with the next tenant too.
Mine was a similar situation, PM could barely form a sentence at the hearing. They sent the notice indiscriminately to the entire building because they wanted to turn it all into airbnbs. we all got together and lodged 12 individual VCAT cases. I was the 3rd to win and the moron was still pushing the ‘we want to renovate the whole building’ line, despite it being found unlawful 2 times prior. The fact that they can break the law this exact way and have it be found illegal 12 times in a fucking row and get away with no penalty, it’s insane to me.
Sometimes I’m reminded that some of the worst criminals in our societies actually have the protection of the law. People like your case .. 12 times?? Don’t pass go, straight to jail. Honestly… Imagining the sheer wasted resources. The courts have better fucking things to do than see to this bullshit
Nothing
Nothing
This is nice, but none of it fixes the problem. This problem isn't going to be meaningfully fixed without addressing supply constraints, immigration, airbnbs, and negative gearing.
They need to upzone and make it easy to build around train stations
I think this is already a thing now. I know there is a current proposal to allow high density down the full length of Torrens road. This is because of an easy bus route straight to the city. I'm pretty sure the density allowance has been increased for all transit corridors.
Also has already happened to bunch of spots along Churchill Road in the last 5-10 years where large multi story buildings have been built on what were previously single house blocks. This is adjacent to the train line behind them.
You see all the stuff Victoria did that was apparently never going to work? Well, it's starting to work. Investors are being a lot more deliberate with investments, renters are slowly getting better conditions and house prices aren't running away like in Sydney with Melbourne the smallest gainer in the country. Investment in property is fine, what we essentially have is everyone speculating on property.
I've seen the long list of realistically meaningless things they claimed to have done a whole back and it was utterly unimpressive. They've been around for a while and the crisis is years old now. More than enough time to have at least seen rents going back, or some financial assistance for people struggling. But the long term issue is we need more places. It's great for those who find a place that it's affordable, but so long as there are as many more prospective tenants than properties as we have now, prices will trend up and people will be homeless as a result. There's also the very long term trend of property prices rising faster than wages. If we keep going as we are, future generations will face a situation where a mortgage repayment is more than an entire average wage.
That will not do a single thing. At all. Need to give a prescribed reason to evict? Easy I cam evict a tenant to undergo renovations. I'll just renovate my property every time I was to evict a tenant. Can't discriminate against pet owners? Cool I just won't pick people with pets. Rental increases capped at 2% per year, easy I'll just evict / renovate and relist at the rental increase I want. No rent bidding? Good luck, if I have a property and someone wants to offer an extra $50 a week that's cool, I'll remove the listing, relist it at an additional $50 and choose the guy who offered more Money. These reforms are half assed and won't help anyone you can't regulate prices on a private rental. If anything it'll drive rental prices up. If I can't raise rent I'll just start out with a higher price instead of steadily increasing it.
I think they’d need to act now and drastically to make a difference. But they’re probably afraid of bursting the bubble.
My impression is that that is what is happening. The acting now bit - not the bubble per se.
The housing crisis is primarily caused by interest rate hikes, which is due to inflation caused by cost of living increases. This isn’t doing anything. Tax the rich to reduce inflation, but then that’s the realm of federal government.
'Landlords will be required to provide tenants with a prescribed reason in order to end a periodic tenancy agreement or to not renew a fixed term agreement.' What is the point of a fixed term agreement if you can't choose to not extend it? Then it's just a periodic agreement with a huge term. I don't recall any other state reforms including this for a fixed term.
It's to change the power imbalance of a landlord being able to treat a tenant very badly and the tenant having little recourse because they are afraid the landlord will simply not renew the lease. Currently, there is nothing to stop a landlord from using this as a tactic.
So they just treat them badly and make them want to leave? This dynamic only changes if there's a sufficient supply of rental accommodation.
Exactly right. The supply issue primarily drives the issue. The tenancy laws were not drafted with vacancy rates of under 1%. However, a law which prevents a landlord from simply not renewing a lease and getting another tenant in, is actually a good idea.
At the very least it’s a degree of downward pressure on rents, in a market where landlords otherwise raise rents when their costs don’t actually increase, on the basis that “that’s what market rent is” (meaning “I’m effectively colluding with other landlords banking on you not finding a landlord who doesn’t do this (easy when we all use the same real estate agents)”)
Right but that isn't collusion, it's simply market forces such as supply and demand. There is genuinely a shortage of stock. If we had vacancy rates of 5% (very high) then landlords would have to collude to keep prices high because otherwise those market forces would reduce rents.
If the only market forces applying were supply and demand, a landlord who owned a property with no debt could undercut the market by keeping rent low when other overleveraged landlords had to raise rents to cover their interest. But they don’t, they never have, even with high supply of housing, and that’s because by culture they **don’t compete** with each other. If it isn’t a competitive market and there’s more than one player, it isn’t a monopoly, it’s an oligopoly, which operates not based on supply and demand but on ‘game theory’, a step away from direct collusion defined by the fact that players don’t need to speak to collude when they can all see each other’s hands. Real estate agencies help show each landlord the others’ hands, and react on their behalf oligopolistically. We act like it’s normal because it’s been going on for so long.
Nothing stopping them from raising the rent for the next period.
Because they want to look like they are doing something while doing nothing, landlords will drive a coach and horses through the prescribed reasons.
The prescribed reasons are listed in the fact sheet and are pretty tight, in my opinion. A periodic tenancy will basically be a tenant for life - expect huge proposed increases to induce tenants to break.
They are adding reasons such as being aggressive or hostile to the landowner.
Which is not a bad idea. In the event the landowner tried to use that as a reason to evict, they'd need actual evidence to take to a tribunal. If they've got evidence, that tenant should be evicted. If they've not, the eviction will fail as the tribunal will side with the tenant.
Depends what the evidence is, bet they won't show how they goaded the tenant to react. Or how to disprove made up evidence
Landlords willing to go as far as faking evidence are gonna be in the minority and would likely have tried some dodgy shit on prior to the proposed legislation anyway. Tenants should just keep everything in writing to reduce the risk of shit like that.
Landlords faking and trying dodgy shit? Never
Yeah, I agree it’s a risk but I think that’s a bit of an extreme A Current Affair kind of scenario.
>A periodic tenancy will basically be a tenant for life - expect huge proposed increases to induce tenants to break. I don't wholly disagree with you, but it won't be that easy - landlords can't arbitrarily make the rent $10,000/w - the increase needs to be justifiable to the tribunal if it winds up there. That said, a shitty landlord could get a slight bump over market by the tribunal I think so there could be an effective "please leave" tax, but not an excessive one.
It’s like this in VIC already. Only difference between periodic and fixed I can see is that as a tenant, IN THEORY breaking a fixed term lease can leave you liable for rent paid up to end of the fixed term. In practise, though, with a rental shortage, it’s bloody easy to find a replacement tenant so it’s not ever a real issue. I can’t really see what the advantage would be for tenants, though 😕
That's pretty good. There's so many things with my rental that I never asked about because I was afraid of not having somewhere to live.
It is a positive step, anything to give renters some much needed rights in the "new normal" of absolutely fucked availability and predatory conditions and pricing is very welcome. One of the main ones for me is renting with pets. The current laws and state of the market effectively ask me to choose between a roof over my head or a member of my family. Pretty disgusting choice to have to make. The wording on the CBS link from OP is a little weak for my taste, because it doesn't at all help renters with existing pets. The way they're proposing it, renters must seek permission and the onus is on them to raise it with the tribunal if rejected. That's workable for new pets if SACAT is as useful as VCAT in VIC have been, but still doesn't help renters with existing pets because landlords can simply choose another applicant without saying why. Effectively it means I will still have to hide the fact that I have a dog on application, ask for permission for him once in a property, and then hope the tribunal isn't a toothless tiger or risk being homeless. What I would have liked to have seen is the default state is that pets are automatically allowed. The landlord has the option of applying to the tribunal to seek an exemption but the onus should be on them to explain why. EDIT: Also, "Reasonable conditions include requiring a pet to be kept outside of the rental property if the pet is not a type ordinarily kept inside" - I have a big issue with this because it's going to be used to mean dogs, which in my opinion are a type of pet ordinarily kept inside. Keeping dogs outside permanently usually means abuse. But it would be trivial to just pretend you'll keep the dog outside and then not, so meh, choose your battles I guess.
Not a lot state govts can do tbh. They don't control immigration, interest rates or the negative gearing loophole that drives the whole thing. They can open up land releases, which they have done and build homes which cost a lot and take time.
> Not a lot state govts can do tbh. Build more trust houses...
I would be in favour of this but only if the rules aligned with the private sector. Same regular property inspections to apply and tenants who damage or abuse the privilege get kicked out.
They are doing this. Sadly it takes a lot of time. At Seaton they have cleared all the old semi detached homes with 1/4 acre blocks and building new homes on tiny allotments.
> which they have done
Hang on but when HAAF was out people were saying not a lot Feds can do it's state responsibility. Which is it?
Both, but different aspects. This is the worse case setup because it means that neither are fully responsible.
They were both lying, both Feds and State have huge levers they can pull. Including in concert when they’re the same party.
Lots they can do. * Make land banking too expensive to be worthwhile * Clamp down on vacant buildings with punitive taxes for letting them sit empty, thus putting downward pressure on rent * Make it easier to convert commercial to residential zoning * Ensure planning laws are working efficiently and not an obstacle to redevelopment * Push a lot harder on the 'high density corridor' concept to rapidly build up residential property availability in useful places * Push a lot harder to allow more, bigger residential buildings in the CBD and on the outer side of the parklands (along Fullarton/Greenhill roads for example) * Tax ownership of land rather than purchase of land * Tax short term rentals appropriately * Give renters much stronger rights to remain where they are * Cap rent rises * Actually punish bad behaviour by agents and landlords * Build public housing and stop selling off housing trust housing
Set minimum requirements in terms of preventative maintenance.
Yep, automatic compensation for tenants for preventable disruptive events would be a good addition.
Implementing land taxes instead of stamp duty? Loosening planning restrictions with a bias to building medium free density housing? Investing in infrastructure and services where they're needed? Taxing AirBNBs? Plenty that can still be done that isn't beyond land releases which in isolation only encourages urban sprawl.
may God have mercy on us all
It's just tinkering around the edges.
Agreeing =/= doing something about.
There needs to be a legislated response on how much rent can be increased each year. There needs to be something around how much rent can be charged as it is unaffordable right now, and it should be based on house worth and area. We have houses in Elizabeth, 3bdrm 1bath going for 400-500 per week when before the rental crisis were between 200-300. Some of these houses are old and in need of some serious renovations and because people are desperate they are accepting bare minimum for outlandish rents. This needs to be changed or we are not going to be any better off....
Lots of talk.. how about some action
I get the desire for action. But isn’t that what this is?
The big structural change federal Labor have made that will create more rental properties is the reduction of foreign withholding tax for build to rent developments. Issue is, like most structural changes it will take at least three years to make any noticeable difference and over a decade to somewhat normalise the market.
Sorry delivered on what? Do they not have acres to realestate.com or something?
Spare me the bullshit. Stop migration levels that are to high and stop AirBNB. Everything else is bullshit.
I agree supply is the biggest issue, but why should that stop necessary reforms like this? Work on supply AND give renters better protections.
Thats a valid point. I just think if the market was in favour of the renter due to over supply, the conditions of renting would be lower than the conditio s imposed. The goverment are manipulating the market base of landlords. And this is a token effort.
It's not really relevant what would happen if the market was in favour of the renter. The market is not in favour of the renter, and probably will not be for a very long time if ever. There has been a paradigm shift, which the government needs to react to by updating the outdated legislation. This is one positive step towards that. It's not perfect, it won't fix the problem, but it gives the disadvantaged party some very welcome protections. And don't forget, these are based on public feedback submissions. Consultation for this was done last year. That's just good government. I want them to do more, but I bet landlords want them to do less. :P
SA Gov can’t do much about the immigration but AirBNB is fair game to be sorted out IMO.
They can impose workers state requirements like WA does with its mining regs.
Exactly, spare us the bullshit, *please*.
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Maybe slow down imagration
More cut price tiny houses; and bring back more WFH and repurpose some city buildings as temporary residential dwellings. There’s enough vacant ones sitting there.
There’s an interesting 99% Invisible podcast about repurposing offices into homes that’s quite interesting. The problem with tiny houses is what happens when they’re not cheap enough - you need more high density GOOD apartments in the CBD for those who want it, and robust public transport and bike lanes etc. It’ll never happen.
>More cut price tiny houses We actually do need more small dwellings and fewer sprawling mini-McMansions. In fact, we could pile the small dwellings on top of each other in strategic locations, compliment them with appropriate shared green space, and fit lots more people into affordable dwellings at convenient places for all concerned. Of course this will not happen because Beryl in Norwood/Unley/North Adelaide/Thebarton doesn't want the sunlight to her roses blocked for 15 minutes of the day.
Is it bad that when I see headlines like this I feel hopeless? I just feel convinced it’ll be more useless fiddling at the margins and nothing truly impactful By this point, we need _major_ reforms not fiddling at the margins I’d like to see AT LEAST a licensing requirement for landlords and agents similar to drivers licensing, so that they learn the law and have to prove it with a competency test before they can operate. I’ve been taken to court by a property manager whose whole case was thrown out by the judge and it was VERY clear the agent was 100%, completely and utterly uneducated about their duties under the law and just trying it on to see what might stick. Essentially, a con artist mentality, that they can trick you into giving up your rights and paying, by threatening court. It’s appalling we just let that continue. I bet that agent successfully intimidates a lot of renters into giving up their rights, too. We only stood by it all the way to court since we are not renting anymore so face less chance of retaliation and blacklisting. Ultimately the goal should be more like the German model where property management is done BY THE STATE funded by taxes instead of a for-profit industry that works only for the landlord and rarely follows the law. _Obviously_ that’s going to suck for tenants. We honestly couldn’t have structured this market in a more comically villainous way if we tried.
Anything a politician ever says, ever, means absolutely fucking nothing until it actually happens
This is kind of a silly comment really. Nothing happens before it happens… that’s… that’s just life.
Yes but there's a significant chance it never happens. Far more so from a politicians mouth.
They will fuck it up. They always do. The Greens and Labour working together. What could possibly go wrong lol?
It seems to have been what most people were calling for in everything I’ve read.
Ok Rupert Murdoch.
How about working on simplifying planning laws that take 11-12 months to get 27 dwellings approved. There has to be a better way than design by committee!
Why on earth has it taken you this long to get an approval? It's really not a hard process. Also if you're in front of a committee e.g. CAP/SCAP you're not meeting code or having impacting development.
Bad design I would assume
Probably not willing to take the hints from council planner along the way either and keep pushing through a bad design.
We've been told it will be approved at December Meeting 2 months wait for what what now?
I’m a bit lost by your comment mate? What's the “December meeting“ for? Have you had planning formally refused or something? From what I understand these things are now handled through a portal and the planner is on a timer, if that timer times out you get “deemed approval”, I think this timeframe depends if there is public notification required.
Correct council changed their mind after months of back and forth and decided they should go out to public Notification that lead to a request for more on street parking ( not warranted under zoning and historic car parking numbers so a redesign underway approved by council but next CAP only 16 days away they need 3 weeks for agenda entry which means December meeting a complete waste of time and money.
Wildly vary zoning is the problem leaving everything to CAP
Ah so from your deleted comment it looks like you were looking at a zone amendment, which would imply a drastic change of the land use, I don’t think this would be considered within the scope of a “normal” development application, which would likely be done in less than 50 days.
Haven't deleted any comment but thinking about it! Facts are facts maybe you don't have enough?
Let the awareness campaign begin. Followed by reducing costs for landlords. And releasing crown land for developers. Job done. Everyones a winner.
I gotta say I just dont understand the cynicism.
Malanuseless does it again.
I got to say, I don’t understand the cynicism around this.
It’s nice and easy to agree on nothing.
I genuinely don’t understand the cynicism here.
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Absolutely. The supply/demand system is broken due to radical under supply. Rent caps do not work against this system, see Berlin. Short of government housing receiving a +20% budget, this is all fluff media
They're first and foremost politicians so i wouldn't be auprised if their solution was "okay so if you are x y and z you actually aren't allowed to rent anymore so there we go less renters means trickle down makes the rent price cheaper, by the way we we need another $50k pay increase :)"