The housing crisis across Australia

The cost-of-living crisis is now a constant feature of news headlines and daily life. Housing costs—from interest rate rises jacking up mortgage repayments to skyrocketing rents and house prices—have become one of the harshest aspects.

Census data shows that around two in three people own a home, but they’re acquiring ever-higher debts and taking longer to pay off their mortgages. Between 1996 and 2021, the number of people who had paid off their home loan dropped from 42 to 31 percent. The International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook noted that because houses are expensive and household debt is high, Australians are now the second most likely in the developed world to default on their mortgages.

Research from the Australian National University shows that the average weekly mortgage repayment has increased by $364 since 2019, now sitting at $864. If the Reserve Bank does not lower interest rates before the end of the year (nobody predicts they will), the average mortgage holder will be paying more than $900 a week—an 80 percent increase in just four years. Someone earning the median income will be spending nearly 40 percent of their income on this repayment.

In places where housing is least affordable, people are already spending a significant proportion of their income on housing. The 2023 ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report showed that on average, Sydney residents would need to spend more than half of their income on paying back a new mortgage.

In major cities, people are moving further away from the prohibitively expensive inner areas, and the quality of new constructions is falling. Nearly half the population of Australia’s five largest cities live in the outer suburbs. But doing so still isn’t cheap, and it comes at the added cost of reduced access to infrastructure and amenities. Western Sydney, where the population has substantially expanded in recent decades, scored poorly in the 2022 Liveability Census in areas such as investment in roads and schools, employment opportunities and the quality of state services. In Melbourne, 50 new suburbs were added to the outskirts of the city in the decade to 2015. With almost no access to public transport, the average resident will end up spending more than 15 percent of their income on running a car, according to a survey by the Australian Automobile Association.

These suburbs aren’t equipped for climate change either. Western Sydney’s 2.5 million residents could find their homes uninhabitable in coming decades due to extreme heat. The advocacy organisation Better Renting reported that across Australia the majority of apartments are already reaching temperatures that the World Health Organisation deems unsafe.

The housing crisis is particularly acute for renters. Over the past year, ANZ’s CoreLogic report shows that house rents have increased three times faster than wages, while for units the rate of rent increase is six times that of wages. Those earning a median income are forced to spend almost a third of their pay on the average rent for a new lease. For households earning around $800 a week, that figure jumps to half their income. The Labor government recently raised the maximum rate of Rent Assistance by around $2 a day, but rents are increasing at double that rate.

Across capital cities, the asking price for units has increased by 25 percent, and in certain areas the number is far higher. In inner-Melbourne, for example, unit prices have skyrocketed by 40 percent in a year. Some smaller cities and regional areas have been hit even worse: the most unaffordable places to rent relative to income are Hobart, followed by regional areas of Queensland and NSW.

The increase in rents has relatively little to do with landlords passing down increased mortgage rates. According to ANZ Bank economists, the main motivator for most landlords is the fact that there are very few rentals available. Landlords are taking advantage of the crisis to gouge tenants and increase rents.

Anyone who has looked for a rental in the last six months knows that they are nearly impossible to find. The vacancy rate is 1.2 percent, which, in addition to making it difficult for anyone looking to move, puts renters under pressure to keep their heads down. Tenant protection laws are inadequate and knowing that you could be served with an eviction notice or rent rise makes it difficult to challenge landlords and property managers. Tenants frequently find themselves in homes riddled with toxic mould and long-term maintenance problems but have nowhere to move.

In NSW, “rent bidding”, where potential tenants offer to pay more than the listed rent to secure a property, is rife. Frantic tenants feel that in such a tight market, there’s no other way to find a place to live. There are more restrictions on rent bidding in Victoria and Queensland, but these have failed to prevent the practice.

In the past, working-class families might have rented for a few years while saving up for a deposit on a home. Now, that seems like a pipe dream for most people. In Sydney, Australia’s most unaffordable city to purchase a home, it would have taken 4.5 times the average pre-tax annual income to buy the average house in 1970. It would now take more than twelve times the average income.

The stress of mortgage and rental hikes is taking a serious toll. In Queensland, the Council of Social Services reported that the number of homeless people has increased by 20 percent in the last five years. Those who lose their homes find it increasingly difficult to access help—the Productivity Commission found that in 2020-2021, 114,000 requests for homelessness services went unassisted.

Two in five people say that the cost-of-living crisis and personal debt is causing them more distress this year than last, and Suicide Prevention Australia reports that these stressors, along with housing access and affordability, and unemployment and job security, are the top risks contributing to increasing suicide rates.

There is however, a minority of people who are exempt from these pressures. Australia’s ultra-rich are driving a massive increase in the luxury property market, with Australian cities now ranking among the top in the world for multi-million-dollar sales. Last December, tech billionaire Scott Farquhar paid $130 million for a Point Piper mansion in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs—smashing existing records for house prices. He did not need to take out a mortgage.

Harry Triguboff, the billionaire owner of property development company Meriton, with a personal property portfolio of nearly 10,000 apartments, has weighed in on the crisis. His solution? Remove the “red tape” that is apparently preventing developers, like himself, from constructing new houses and making his next billion.

The housing crisis is spiralling out of control in every corner of the country. The fallback option which once existed, public housing with capped rents, has declined from 9 percent of all dwelling approvals in the 1980s to 1.6 percent today. There is no pressure on landlords to keep rents at affordable levels. Nothing is being done to stop the wealthy gaining an ever-increasing share of the housing market through investments.

Having a safe and stable roof over one’s head should be one of the most basic expectations of any society. The current housing crisis is one of the starkest illustrations of capitalism’s basic inhumanity.