Rental market, NSW: Greens rent freeze plan could increase Airbnbs, homelessness

The Greens could be in a position to request a rent freeze in Australia’s most populous state soon after this weekend’s election.

Bets and polls predict that Labor leader Chris Minns will become NSW’s next prime minister after the election on March 25, but his party may not have a majority.

That means it could be forced to rely on the Greens or independent MPs to form a minority government.

This could put power in the hands of the Greens, who “want to introduce an immediate rent freeze and get rents back under control.”

In Sydney, average weekly house rents have risen 21.8 percent over the past year to $945, compared to $776, in a city with a low rental vacancy rate of 1.3 percent, data from SQM Research showed.

Separate data from PropTrack showed that weekly rents for homes in Clovelly, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, rose by $633, or 46.4 percent, to $1,995 in the year to February.

In East Balmain, which falls within a Greens voter, weekly house rents rose 36.6 percent, or $375, to $1,400.

Unit rents in South Granville rose 58.2 percent or $163 to $443 per week.

Louis Christopher, founder and chief executive of SQM Research, said a rent freeze would simply encourage landlords to stop listing properties for long-term rentals and instead list them on Airbnb to take advantage of strong short-term demand. rental properties.

“Putting a rent cap won’t solve the problem in the medium term – it’s like a short-term patch solution that will only make the problem worse,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

“You’ve got a landlord there who thinks, ‘Bugger this, I’m just going to put it on Airbnb and see how I go there.’

“There’s been a huge shift toward short-term rentals on standard, suburban stock, your standard three-bedroom house.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an increase in homelessness.”

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s 10 rate hikes since May have also made it harder for developers to borrow, with cash rates now at an 11-year high of 3.6 percent.

This caused a 27.6 percent drop in building approvals in January, as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Mr Christopher said a rent freeze would simply discourage builders and potential investors, reducing the available supply of accommodation for the 95 per cent of tenants who rent on the private market.

This in turn would lead to even higher rents.

“If you decide to put a cap on rents and a host of other restrictions, potential real estate investors will throw their hands up and say ‘this is all too hard, it’s too risky to invest in real estate,'” he said .

‘We have less supply for the larger population.

“Real estate developers can’t continue to build properties unless they have presales because the banks don’t lend them money — the presales come from owner-occupiers and they come from real estate investors.”

Sports betting bettors expect Labor from the Liberal Party to win the Sydney seats of East Hills, Penrith, Riverstone, Parramatta and Heathcote.

That would give Labor 42 seats in the state’s lower house, which would be five short of a majority.

Mr Minns could therefore need the support of Green MPs in Balmain, Newtown and Ballina, plus two independents to become Prime Minister – in one possible scenario.

Bruce Hawker, former chief of staff to Labor Prime Minister Bob Carr in 1995 when the party narrowly defeated the opposition, said a minority Labor government in NSW was the most likely outcome.

“I think you have to assume that minority government is a real possibility and that was something we had to think about in 1995,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

But Mr Hawker, who is now chairman of Bruce Hawker Consulting, said Mr Minns could also be confident that a large group of independents would have the confidence and offer to form a government, and would not pursue a policy of pushing MPs between appease the various banks.

“You have to be very careful with this kind of thing, if you go ahead and make changes that you said you weren’t going to make, it could cause problems,” he said.

Mr Hawker said this meant Labor would not be limited to doing business only with the Greens if it did not have a majority.

“There will be a broad spectrum of people they can sit down with and say, ‘We want your support,'” Hawker said.

The Greens also want to decriminalize all recreational drugs and are campaigning to legalize cannabis for recreational use and possession.

“We will create a regulated cannabis market in NSW to reduce the harms of cannabis use while preventing large companies from over commercializing the cannabis market,” the website reads.

“Legalizing cannabis will increase tax revenue for the government, create new jobs and potentially inject billions into the NSW economy.

It will end the black market for cannabis, reduce police spending on the war on drugs and redirect resources to drug treatment and other social services.

“Therefore, the Greens will work to decriminalize all drugs, establish a legal cannabis market and introduce harm reduction measures and drug and alcohol services throughout NSW.”

While the Greens are less likely to support the coalition, they are unlikely to back Labor’s plan to buy back Eraring station on Lake Macquarie near Newcastle.

Mr Minns has put forward this idea as a way to keep the coal-fired power station open beyond its planned 2025 closure date, with the Australian energy regulator predicting a 20 per cent increase in electricity bills in NSW over the next financial year.

He would like to avoid the mistake former Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard made in 2010 when she promised there would be no carbon tax, only to introduce one in 2011 when she came to rely on the Greens and regional independents to push for a . to form a minority government.