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CANBERRA - A vast, A$623 million ($764 million) scheme to provide cheap rental housing across Australia took its first steps yesterday - as political leaders tried to quell mounting violence from families desperate for a home.
The scheme to build up to 50,000 new rental properties over the next four years was introduced into Parliament by Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek amid growing concern that demand continues to accelerate way beyond supply.
In Sydney, where a survey showed only 739 properties currently for rent in a city of four million, real estate agents have reported threats of violence, confrontation and abuse from home hunters.
One agent said a man facing eviction because he could not pay an increased rent had threatened to kill himself in the house to turn others away from the property.
Across the nation, vacancy rates are running at record lows as rents soar.
In Sydney and Melbourne the rate has hovered around 1 per cent for months; in Darwin it has crashed to just 0.3 per cent; in Adelaide and Canberra it is less than 2 per cent; and in Perth and Hobart it is well below 3 per cent.
Median rents in most major cities are between A$300 and A$400 a week.
Buying a home remains an impossible dream for most.
The latest Mortgage Choice/Real Estate Institute market report said that despite rising interest rates and other pressures, the Australian weighted average median house-price has risen by 6 per cent over the past year, to almost A$450,000, and peaking at A$542,000 in Sydney.
About 100,000 Australians are estimated to be homeless.
Introducing legislation for the Government's national rental affordability scheme, Plibersek said that more than one million households were now in housing stress, spending more than one-third of their gross income on rent or mortgages.
Almost 700,000 of these households were renting. Many were low and moderate income-earners.
In Sydney, Premier Nathan Rees will meet with the Real Estate Institute following its survey showing a continuing crisis in the city.
Although there has been a marginal improvement within the 10km ring around the central business district, the market has tightened further in suburbs 10-25km out from the inner city.
Overall, the city's vacancy rate remains at just 1.2 per cent.
The institute said that Sydney's population was increasing at a rate of more than 1400 people a week, about twice the number of rental properties available in its latest survey.
Institute president Steve Martin said that the situation was so grave that about one-third of the 200 agents taking part in the survey had been threatened or abused by prospective tenants over the past month.
He said desperate home-hunters had offered bribes or had broken into tears.
In its May Budget the federal Government promised A$2.2 billion to tackle housing affordability and homelessness, largely though tax and other incentives to build low-cost housing and low-rental properties.
Yesterday Plibersek launched the first stage, introducing legislation for the affordable renting scheme providing developers with a A$6000 federal incentive for each low-rent dwelling built, with a A$2000 top-up from the states.
If market demand remains strong after the first 50,000 units are built, the scheme will continue to fund a further, similar number of properties over the following five years.
Plibersek said the scheme would reduce rental costs by increasing supply, and properties built under the scheme would be rented out at 20 per cent below market rates.
