‘A social calamity’: record-high rents push tenants across Australia to breaking point

Weekly rents in Sydney have climbed by 23.7% in the past 12 months and 4.21% in the past week alone. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

David* and his partner had been living in their inner-Sydney property for only 12 months when they were issued with a 50% rent increase. They had been paying $800 a week for a three-bedroom home with a study, one car space and no facilities. Now, they were told, it would jump to $1,200.

“Their justification was it’s in line with market value,” David says. “We said we’d be prepared to pay $1,000 a week, even though the air conditioning hasn’t worked.”