Australia’s housing crisis is getting worse as Anthony Albanese prepares to buy a $4.3 million clifftop home with ocean views.
The Prime Minister has bought a beach house in Copacabana, on the NSW central coast, as Australians struggle with an immigration-induced shortage of rental properties.
The capital’s rental property vacancy rate fell to just 1.2 percent last month, down from an already tight 1.3 percent in August, new data from SQM Research shows.
This means tenants have less choice of where to live as immigration continues to grow at high levels and the large influx of international students competes with other potential tenants.
SQM Research director Louis Christopher said renters are the ones suffering most as a result of “continued strong migration growth”.
“This rapid population growth will continue to put pressure on the rental market,” he said.
‘The national rental market continues to experience a serious shortage and, with a few exceptions, it is not expected that there will be a material alleviation of the rental crisis in the coming years.’
A net of 452,670 new migrants moved to Australia in the year to August, while the fertility rate fell to a new record low, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released this week.
Australia’s housing crisis continues to worsen as Anthony Albanese prepares for a $4.3 million clifftop home with ocean views (pictured)
The Prime Minister has bought a beach house in Copacabana, on the NSW Central Coast north of Sydney, as Australia grapples with an immigration-driven housing crisis (Anthony Albanese is pictured right with his fiancée Jodie Haydon)
The annual net overseas migration rate was below the record level of more than 500,000 earlier this year, but it casts doubt on Labour’s pledge to reduce immigration.
The permanent and long-term inflow for the first few months of this budget year is well above the level of 260,000 for the 2024-2025 period 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 arrive in Australia by 2024, even after accounting for departures.
“The federal government is treating Australians like fools because the latest record migration influx shows it has no intention of delivering on its promise to curb arrival levels, leaving Australians poorer,” he said.
“The federal government’s runaway migration influx remains one of the biggest social and economic failures in Australia’s history.
“This record level of inflows is unplanned, unsustainable and has fueled the perfect storm of high inflation, falling household incomes and ever-increasing house prices and rents.”
Rental vacancy rates in the capital fell to just 1.2 per cent last month, compared to 1.3 per cent in August, new data from SQM Research showed (pictured is a rental queue for Sydney’s Bondi)
The housing crisis also coincided with a declining birth rate.
In 2023, Australia’s fertility rate fell to just 1.5 births per woman, compared to an already low 1.63 in 2022.
This was even further below the replacement level of ‘two’ (mom and dad) and is the lowest fertility rate in data going back to 1935 during the Depression.
Australia had that too last year 286,998 registered births, a decrease of 4.6 percent compared to 2022 and the lowest since 2007.
The surge in overseas migration is also driving interstate migration, as families flee unaffordable Sydney for greater value in cities such as Perth and Brisbane.
Perth has a particularly tight rental vacancy rate of 0.6 per cent, while average rents for houses and units rose 11.4 per cent to $721 per week in the year to October, SQM Research data shows.
Although Sydney is Australia’s most expensive capital for renters, at $838 per week, Perth now ranks second, ahead of Brisbane ($664.50), Canberra ($641), Melbourne ($628), Adelaide ($605), Darwin ($576). ) and Hobart ($503).
Regional and satellite cities are also particularly difficult for renters.
Gosford, on New South Wales’ central coast, has an ultra-low rental vacancy rate of 0.5 percent.
It is also in Labour’s marginal seat of Robertson, which straddles Copacabana, where Albanese hopes to spend more time with his fiancée Jodie Haydon, whose family lives north of Sydney.
Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor suggested Albanese was planning his retirement.
“Oh look, I’m not planning on retiring. It is clear that the Prime Minister is and we are going to help him with that. But thanks for thinking along,” he told Triple M on the Central Coast on Thursday.