Tenants are continuing to feel the pain of rising rents with the number of listings falling to another record low, according to the PropTrack Rental Report.
The report, released on Tuesday, found that total rental listings on realestate.com.au in December were at a record low, sitting 30.2% below the average over the past decade for the month.
Rental prices skyrocketed due to the strong demand for the limited properties available, with the median rent on the website surging 11.5% over the year to $580 a week.
That was a slower rate of rental price growth than 2022, which saw a 15.6% increase.
Housing advocates say the numbers show the government’s “policies are failing to make housing affordable” and again called for change to negative gearing and capital gains policies.
PropTrack’s director of economic research and the report author, Cameron Kusher, said the rental market was “characterised by low supply and strong demand in 2023”.
There were 4.6% fewer new listings on realestate.com.au in December than a year before, and 20.7% fewer listings than the 10-year average for the month.
Listings spend a median of 19 days on site. This was marginally higher than the 18 days in December 2022 but is lower than any other December since 2017, the report noted.
The number of enquiries per rental listing on the site remained at elevated levels after climbing 3.3% over the year.
“While we expect rents to continue to rise this year, it’s likely that the rate of growth will slow,” Kusher said.
“The already higher cost of renting and overall increase in the cost of living will limit rent price increases moving forward.
“For renters hoping to purchase a property, higher rents are making it difficult to save a deposit, while higher interest rates will make servicing a mortgage more expensive.”
Kusher said there had been a rebound in new investor lending this year but it was not enough to sufficiently improve stock levels.
Maiy Azize, a spokesperson for housing campaign Everybody’s Home, said renters were struggling to keep up with the continued increases.
“Years of unchecked rent increases are taking a toll, with hundreds of thousands of Australians stuck in rental stress because they simply don’t have a choice,” Azize said. “Vacancy rates have crashed and they just cannot find an affordable rental.
“These numbers also show that government policies are failing to make housing affordable. Even though landlords can write off their costs and interest rate losses on tax, rents keep surging.”
Everybody’s Home’s latest report showed that taxpayers were set to lose almost $150bn to landlord handouts over the next decade, she said.
“We’re spending record amounts on policies that make housing more expensive.”
