A Brisbane tenant has been asked to pay a 60% rent increase, as Queensland renters advocates say some landlords are hiking prices well above normal market rates.
Nicolas* moved into a two-bedroom apartment in South Brisbane earlier this year which he currently rents for $470 a week.
But he was so shocked by an email from his property manager that he initially dismissed it as a typo: his landlord plans to rent the unit for $750 a week next year. He was asked if he would pay the new rate or move out.
The rent hike means Nicolas and his partner will no longer be able to afford to live in the property and will spend their Christmas holiday period searching for a new home.
“The market has tightened a lot in the past year, so I was expecting an increase of something like 10-20%,” Nicolas said.
“Getting a 60% raise was really shocking. It’s such a dramatic rise in such a short period of time with only two months’ notice.”
In an email seen by Guardian Australia, the manager advised Nicolas that they had “checked multiple times” with the landlord before advising him of the increase.
The chief executive at Tenants Queensland, Penny Carr, said rent increases were happening across the board. She said last week alone 33 people called the union asking for advice about them.
Carr said that on average the increases were 35%. The largest had been for an additional $550 a week – climbing from $1,200 to $1,750. The union also saw another rent increase of 385%, she said, resulting in one person’s rent going from $105 to $490 a week.
“We’re still just seeing these ridiculous increases that are unaffordable to people,” Carr said.
“At the moment some people are getting this ‘take it or leave it’ form. So it’s a new agreement with a rent increase or a notice to leave.”
Guardian Australia revealed last month that Ray White West End had urged landlords to consider raising rents by more than 20%.
Carr believed the government should only allow rent increases above the inflation rate if they were justifiable and there had been major work to a property.
“It’s just opportunistic … these massive increases because the market has got an opportunity to do these sort of short gains,” she said.
“On average, it costs around $4,000 to move and it is coming into Christmas. People might decide to stay for now but it’s not sustainable in the longer term.”
The federal Greens housing and homelessness spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, said the government should freeze rent rises while the country grapples with a worsening rental crisis.
“Until the government finally agrees to freeze rent increases we’re going to keep seeing shocking stories like this,” Chandler-Mather said.
“It’s abundantly clear that this 60% rent increase has nothing to do with cost increases for landlords, and everything to do with vicious price-gouging made legal by incredibly weak tenancy laws.
“Thirty per cent of this country rents, and it’s completely unsustainable to have a set of laws that allow landlords and real estate agents to price-gouge using the threat of eviction as the ultimate negotiating tool.”
While Nicolas was confident that he and his partner would find somewhere in their budget to rent, he was concerned about those in more vulnerable situations who may have limited options.
“The landlords are taking advantage of the situation, being greedy and putting profits above everything else,” he said.
“For people on welfare or single mothers with kids … the whole moving process is a much bigger deal for them and often a lot more expensive. Our hearts go out to people in those situations.”
The property manager has been contacted for comment.
*Name has been changed to protect the individual’s identity
