Taping up and filling boxes wasn’t on Tony Armstrong’s bingo card for 2024.

But $950 a week in rent is a tipping point the 63-year-old retiree simply can’t manage.

“I find myself struggling more and more every day. I understand the owners need to cover their costs … I know the agents need to cover their costs, but at the end of the day, it’s people like myself who are struggling to afford that increase,” he said.

The father of one has lived in Brighton, in Melbourne’s inner south-east, for over 20 years.

He retired in July, and started mowing lawns a few times a week to top up his redundancy package.

Brighton is home to some of the highest house prices in Victoria — he knows that, he said, but has stayed for his mental health.

“If I had to get up and move, say to the country, I would lose all those connections here that I’ve built up.

Next month, he will move four kilometres away, into a smaller property that’s $300 a week cheaper.

“It is draining. You don’t sleep because you’re just wondering, how am I going to be able to afford [rent] going forward?”

Rental affordability crisis ‘spreads like an oil stain’

For the first time on record, tenants in two capital cities are paying more than 30 per cent of their income, on average, towards rent.

The 10th annual ‘Rental Affordability Index’ by SGS Economics and Planning compares median rent prices with the incomes of 10 different low-to-moderate-income household types to assess affordability.

A score between 80 and 100 meant households were spending 30–38 per cent of their income on rent.

A score of 50–80 indicated spending 38–60 per cent of income on rent

Below 50 was classified as extremely unaffordable, while a score of 40 or less signified critically unaffordable rent — meaning households spent at least 75 per cent of income on rent.

This year, both Perth and Sydney dropped below 100 — the first time in the decade the index has been published.

Lead researcher of the report Ellen Witte said the figures reflected Australia being “in a deep housing crisis” where unaffordable rentals had “spread like an oil stain” into outer-suburban and regional areas.

“We’ve seen further deterioration, especially in greater Perth, Adelaide and Sydney, where rents were already so unaffordable.

“A few places are going against the grain — in Tasmania, we’ve seen rental affordability improving slightly, especially driven by lower population growth and weakening economy and the fact that they already came from a very unaffordable place.”

Rents in Hobart and regional Tasmania remained steady over the past year, rising 2.1 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively.

Tasmania was one of only two states to see affordability increase — the other was the ACT. But it came after a 21.5 per cent jump in rents in Hobart between 2020 to 2022.

Canberra was scored as Australia’s most affordable capital city, but that was largely due to high average incomes.

For low-income earners and students, it remained one of the toughest rental markets in the country.

“The key difference [in the ACT] was that in 2019 the government put in place a policy to stop excessive rent increases, and it seems to be really turning into benefits now, because we see now that for most households, rental affordability has actually improved there against anywhere else,” Ms Witte said.

The NT is not included in the report due to barriers to accessing rental data.

New ‘critically unaffordable’ category added

The report found that rent remained affordable (15 per cent or less of income spent on rent) for certain household types in specific areas, such as:

• Dual-income couples with children in every city and regional area.
• Single full-time working parents and minimum-wage couples in regional Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.
• Single-income couples with children in regional South Australia.
• Hospitality workers in regional Tasmania.

However, for those on JobSeeker, the situation was starkly different.

This year, the ‘critically unaffordable’ category was added to reflect the increasing number of households spending 75 per cent or more of their income on rent.

“We’re now seeing people who are paying well north of that 30 per cent, even 40, 50, 60, 70 per cent of income … to secure a property,” said John Engeler, chair of housing advocacy organisation National Shelter, which contributed to the report. 

“That’s the reason we’ve had to introduce that new, more severe category to illustrate how dire the situation is.”  

In every city and state, rent was critically or extremely unaffordable for single people on JobSeeker payments, and in three areas for single pension holders and single parents working part-time.

Perth sees sharpest drop in affordability

Before the pandemic, Perth was Australia’s most affordable capital city. Since 2020, rent prices in WA’s capital have surged by almost 80 per cent, while incomes have risen only 15.2 per cent.

Over the past year, Perth experienced the steepest decline in affordability, dropping 13 per cent. Renters in Perth now spend an average of 31 per cent of their weekly income on rent.

A similar story of declining affordability has impacted most other capital cities:

• Adelaide: -8 per cent
• Melbourne: -6 per cent
• Sydney: -5 per cent
• Brisbane: -4 per cent

Affordability improved slightly in the ACT and Hobart, both up 3 per cent, as incomes rose faster than rent prices.

Ms Witte attributed the worsening rental affordability to rising inflation, higher interest rates, and a return to pre-pandemic population growth.

In Australia’s most populous cities — Sydney and Melbourne — there were no affordable suburbs in inner-city areas, and more and more outer suburbs were becoming unaffordable, particularly in Melbourne.

The least affordable suburb in Sydney was Seaforth in the city’s inner north-east, and for Melbourne, it was Beaumaris in the inner-south-east.

Brisbane unaffordable for 90pc of household types

Brisbane landlord Rob Johnson has had a front-row seat to the city’s rents soar over the past few years.

The 43-year-old bought his first property in Melbourne in 2008, then went on to buy three properties in Brisbane; three of his four properties are negatively geared, he said.

“I’m still losing money.”

Rent on his Melbourne property has risen from $510 a week to $650 since 2008. 

“I feel for people. My Brisbane place has had a 60 per cent increase in rent in seven years.”

He would be happy if the rules changed to boost incentives for investors to buy new properties, rather than existing stock, to boost supply, he said.

The SGS report found Brisbane tenants had experienced a sharp decline in affordability in the past four years.

In 2020, other than the Brisbane CBD, most inner-city suburbs fell into the ‘acceptable’ or ‘affordable’ category.

Now, a dual-income couple with children was the only type of household tested that could afford to rent in those same areas.

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Ms Witte argued policy changes were needed to constrain rent price rises.

“I would like to see … some rules in place where you can increase rent, but just not in an excessive way.

“We shouldn’t forget that about a third of all households in Australia are now renting, often for the long term.

“Lots of young families no longer have hope of ever owning a home. We need to come up with solutions where it is affordable and people have a secure tenancy for the long term.”

Lack of social housing pushes people to private market

Mr Engeler from National Shelter said a significant lack of social housing coupled with stagnant incomes was putting a lot more pressure on the private rental market.

Over the past 30 years, the proportion of Australians renting increased from 26 per cent to 31 per cent. At the same time, the proportion of public housing tenants fell from 5.5 per cent to 2.9 per cent, according to the ABS.

“Renting has never been harder,” Mr Engeler said, “There’s no single reason why, but one of the biggest reasons is that rents are outstripping incomes.

“We’re seeing more and more people rent as a tenure for life. We’re not seeing the same level of people moving into home ownership. So the size of the rental market is increasing.”

Housing key issue for 2025 federal election

Kos Samaras, director at research company Red Bridge, said housing, especially renting, would be on the agenda for voters next year.

While renting is primarily an issue for states and territories, “voters think every level of government is responsible”, Mr Samaras said.

Red Bridge surveyed 2,000 Australians earlier this year and that found 69 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds are delaying buying a home because they can’t afford it.

“That’s a huge number of Australians who, into their mid-30s, cannot afford to buy a home in this country and that’s having a whole lot of knock-on effects especially when it comes to renting.

It also found 54 per cent had delayed having children because of high housing costs — with high rent costs being the biggest factor, he said.

Traditionally and generally, the older people get, the more conservative they vote.

That’s changing, Mr Samaras said, and housing is the main reason.

The inability to buy property and start a family meant it was in fewer Australians’ interests to conserve the status quo, he said.

“Younger people … are becoming less and less connected to any political party. About 48 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds we surveyed said they had no value connections to any party in this country,” he said.

That’s compared to 71 per cent of baby boomers who said they did have a connection.

“People are becoming more disenchanted with politics and our democratic system and the driver of that sentiment is housing and everything that spins off from housing.

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