Is this the future of housing in Sydney? Inside the micro apartments that go for $395 a week – and renters can’t seem to get enough

Sydney’s rental crisis is now so bad that a housing charity is renting out small micro units to well-paid professionals with six-figure incomes who struggle to afford a normal apartment.

The Nightingale Marrickville complex in the city’s west offers weekly rents from $395 to $440 for a studio apartment with just 22 to 31 square meters of floor space.

The smallest units are less than a tenth the size of the average new home in Sydney with 254 square meters of interior space.

But demand for a micro-unit in the five-storey complex is so high that potential tenants must apply through a ballot for one of the 54 available apartments, with priority given to essential workers, asylum seekers and ‘individuals working in the arts’. to work’.

The rental price of the units near Marrickville train station covers water and electricity for the first year and is designed to be €20 cheaper than the equivalent micro-apartment on the private rental market.

So are the units significantly cheaper than the average weekly rent of $691 in the suburban zip code 2204 with an ultra-tight rental vacancy rate of 0.8 percent.

The very small apartments are only available to people with jobs, making it different from traditional public housing for people on benefits.

The Nightingale Marrickville complex in the city’s west offers weekly rents from $395 to $440 for a studio apartment with just 22 to 31 square meters of floor space

Individuals earning up to $97,000 and couples with a combined income of $126,125 are eligible to apply.

Single parents with one child can earn up to $145,500 – or more than double the Australian median income of $67,600.

The units come to market as long lines for rental inspections snake through Sydney’s suburbs every weekend, amid an immigration-driven rental crisis.

The sheer number of immigrants means supply cannot keep up with demand, with Australia approving just one new home for every four new migrants.

Now Nightingale Housing, a non-profit housing charity in Melbourne, is working with Fresh Hope Communities, the benevolent arm of Churches of Christ in NSW and the ACT which owns the land.

Under the deal, churches make land available, allowing a housing provider in a build-to-rent project to offer a rental price that is well below market value.

This approach could see the New South Wales government offer land to housing providers to provide affordable accommodation.

State Planning Minister Paul Scully said build-to-rent projects offered an alternative to existing schemes, where individual investors, but not companies or charities, could claim negative tax breaks from the federal government if they suffered rental losses.

“We are in a housing crisis and we want to create opportunities in every area of ​​the housing market,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

‘Build-to-rent is an important long-term rental option for people in need who cannot afford to buy a home or choose to rent long-term.

The units are also significantly cheaper than the average weekly rent of $691 in the 2204 zip code, in a suburb with an ultra-tight rental vacancy rate of 0.8 percent.

Now Nightingale Housing, a non-profit housing charity in Melbourne, is working with Fresh Hope Communities, the benevolent arm of Churches of Christ in NSW and the ACT which owns the land

“We must look at every opportunity for new homes for people who need them, especially young people, essential workers and families.”

Such is the demand for the 54 micro-apartments in the ‘teilhaus’ complex on Illawarra Road that voting closes on Monday afternoon after less than two weeks.

Applicants must provide pay stubs, tax returns and a letter from their employer and must be 18 years or older, except in exceptional circumstances.

Priority is being given to essential workers such as teachers, police officers, ambulance crews, firefighters, social and charity workers and ‘individuals working in the arts’.

Nightingale Housing also focuses on employees low or informal wages, single women aged 55 and over, people with disabilities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and ‘vulnerable minority groups’ such as asylum seekers.

An influx of immigration has made it very difficult for potential tenants to find somewhere to live, with Sydney experiencing a very tight rental vacancy rate of 1.1 percent.

In Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s suburb of Marrickville, things are even tougher with a vacancy rate of just 0.8 per cent and an average weekly rent of $691, data from SQM Research shows.

The smallest units are less than a tenth the size of the average new home in Sydney with 254 square meters of interior space

Individuals earning up to $97,000 and couples with a combined income of $126,125 are eligible to apply

For an average full-time worker with an income of $98,218, that would account for 37 percent of income, putting someone in rental stress based on the fact that someone spends more than 30 percent of their pre-tax wages on housing.

Demand from international students is particularly strong in Sydney’s inner-city areas, with a monthly record of 55,330 migrants on a net basis flooding into the country in January, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed last week.

In that month, 12,850 new residential buildings were approved, which meant that only one new home was approved for every four new residents.

A record 518,000 migrants moved to Australia in 2022-23, but this has since slowed to a still high level of 481,620.