Australia’s housing crisis is continuing to worsen as Anthony Albanese prepares to settle on a $4.3million clifftop home with ocean views.
The Prime Minister has bought a beach house at Copacabana, on the NSW Central Coast north of Sydney, as Australia grapples with an immigration-fuelled shortage of rental accommodation.
Capital city rental vacancies last month fell to just 1.2 per cent, down from an already-tight 1.3 per cent in August, new SQM Research data showed.
This means renters have fewer choices of where to live as immigration continues to grow at high levels, with the big influx of international students competing with other prospective tenants.
SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher said renters were the ones suffering the most, as a result of ‘ongoing strong migration growth’.
‘This rapid population growth will continue to keep pressure on the rental market,’ he said.
‘The national rental market remains in severe shortage and barring some exceptions, is not expected to materially soften out of the rental crisis for some years.’
In the year to August, 452,670 new migrants on a net basis moved to Australia as the fertility rate plunged to a new record low, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released this week revealed.
The annual net overseas migration figure was below the record-high levels above 500,000, reached earlier this year, but it’s casting doubt on Labor’s promise to cut immigration.
The permanent and long-term intake for the opening months of this financial year is well above the 260,000 level for 2024-25 forecast in the May Budget.
Daniel Wild, the deputy executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs think tank, said the latest figures showed more than 500,000 migrants were likely to have arrived in Australia in 2024, even when departures were factored in.
‘The federal government is treating Australians like fools, as the latest record migration intake reveals it has no intention of keeping its promise to curb arrival levels, which is making Australians poorer,’ he said.
‘The federal government’s out-of-control migration intake continues to be one of the most significant social and economic failures in Australia’s history.
‘These record level of intakes have not been planned for, are unsustainable, and have fuelled the perfect storm of high inflation, declining household incomes, and ever-higher house prices and rents.’
The housing crisis has also coincided with a falling birthrate.
In 2023, Australia’s fertility rate fell to just 1.5 births per women, down from an already low 1.63 in 2022.
This was further below the replacement level of ‘two’ – covering mum and dad – and is the lowest fertility rate in records going back to 1935 during the Depression.
Last year, Australia had 286,998 registered births, a 4.6 per cent plunge from 2022 and the lowest since 2007.
The strong influx of overseas migration is also driving interstate migration, as families flee unaffordable Sydney for better value in cities like Perth and Brisbane.
Perth has a particularly tight 0.6 per cent rental vacancy rate, as median house and unit rents in the year to October soared by 11.4 per cent to $721 a week, the SQM Research data showed.
While Sydney is Australia’s most expensive capital city market for renters, at $838 a week, Perth is now in second place, putting it ahead of Brisbane ($664.50), Canberra ($641), Melbourne ($628), Adelaide ($605), Darwin ($576) and Hobart ($503).
Regional and satellite cities are also particularly tough for renters.
Gosford, on the New South Wales Central Coast, has an ultra-low 0.5 per cent rental vacancy rate.
It is also in the marginal Labor-held seat of Robertson which covers Copacabana, where Mr Albanese is hoping to spend more time with his fiancee Jodie Haydon, whose family live north of Sydney.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor suggested Mr Albanese was planning his retirement.
‘Oh look, I’m not planning on retirement. Clearly, the Prime Minister is and we’re going to help him out with that. But thanks for the thought,’ he told Triple M on the Central Coast on Thursday.
