Throughout my 20s I never thought about owning property, because I was too busy enjoying living with friends in a string of share houses. Some of the places were nice, others were not.
There were outdoor bathrooms, avocado trees, gaps in the floorboards, and even a resident rat. We decorated with our found furniture and our eclectic tastes, making lamps out of old table legs and tables out of old milk crates. Two decades back, renting in inner-city Melbourne suburbs was affordable and easy.
When I moved northside to Brunswick with my partner in the late 1990s, everyone we knew was still renting. Then friends started getting real jobs and putting down deposits on those rundown weatherboards that dotted out streets. My partner and I weren’t thinking long term. Any savings we ever had were usually blown on travel or holidays. At the time, we assumed that we would always be able to rent in the streets that we loved because we couldn’t conceive of what was coming.
For many years, we were fortunate because we rented a house from friends at a considerable discount. Without their generosity, we would have felt the sting of the housing crisis far earlier. We lived with our young children in that house, cementing our connection to community – to the local kindergarten, then school, the library, the swimming pool, the friends. The longer we rented, the longer we wanted to stay. But being a renter does not guarantee you choice.
We all know the stories. Stories of brutal rent increases, insecure housing, landlords ending leases after one year, mould, inadequate heating and cooling, repairs never being completed, fear that even asking for repairs will mean retaliation, and snaking queues of potential applicants all desperate for properties they can barely afford because there are none that they can.
I believe we have little understanding for renters in this country, and the division among those who own and those who do not is more entrenched than it has ever been.
There is still the popular assumption that as a renter, you aren’t all that attached to the place you live in. As if by being a temporary guest you are somehow less sentimental and less house proud. Unless you have rented yourself it is very hard to imagine the fear that comes with such instability.
Unlike many other countries that have secure long-term housing options for renters, we are largely at the whim of landlords in Australia. And it is hard to commit to a neighbourhood when you don’t know how long you will be allowed to stay.
When I bought an apartment recently at the age of 50, I was a statistical anomaly. In Australia, most first home buyers used to be aged between 25 and 34, but that is changing as it becomes harder to borrow and even harder to find an affordable property. Most people buying their first home tend to buy further out of the city.
The only reason I was able to buy an apartment was because my partner had died, and I inherited money through his death benefits. And even then, I had to borrow a large sum from the bank and smaller sums from generous friends. I knew how lucky I was. I finally had a place of my own. A place where I could paint the walls, bang in nails, and rip out cupboards without fearing that I’d have to up and leave after only a year. And amazingly, my mortgage is cheaper than the rent I was paying before moving in, even after the year of brutal rate rises.
I’m not going to pretend that it isn’t freeing to finally have somewhere permanent to live, in a suburb where my children and I have friends, where my community knows me, and where I have years of memories of my partner gardening in our rented front yard, selling lemonade with our son, and holding my hand on date night. But if I’d had access to a secure, long-term rental property that had meant staying in the suburb I loved without being at the constant whim of a landlord, I may not have plunged myself into enormous debt at this age.
I never minded renting. I minded what it entailed. The fragility, insecurity, stress, and ever-increasing expense. I didn’t desperately need to own my own place. I just needed to know I could stay more permanently in the one that belonged to someone else. But that rarely happens here.
Now that I am paying a mortgage instead of monthly rent, I still worry that I won’t come up with the money each month or that it will become unaffordable. But at least I don’t worry that I will be forced to leave or that my rent will soar before I sign on for another year. That is an enormous relief. And one that every Australian should be entitled to.
• Nova Weetman is an award-winning children’s author. Her adult memoir, Love, Death & Other Scenes, is out in April 2024 from UQP
