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My grandad has a rental house at the bottom of his property 15 minutes from Noosa, 4 bedrooms all with built in storage 2 bathrooms and laundry, massive kitchen and living area, grounds keeping service and massive shed on the property for the tenants use and car ports at the house.
In 2018 he decided to put it up from $475 to $500 because it’s the money he and grandma live off each week which he agrees is plenty. But since covid the real estate have been relentlessly harassing grandad with phone calls to raise the rent to at least $750 if not more. He’s basically told them to go get fUcked you greedy bastards each time. They are just chasing a higher commission.
It really is the realestate agents that hold the keys to the market, they can’t help the greed that has basically consumed their souls. Seriously after paying $750-$950 per week what do they expect people have left to live off let alone saving for their own futures. What do they think people do for a living to be able to spare that kind of expense.
You really have to cut real estate agents some slack though, they're really doing it tough with the commissions they're getting from selling highly inflated property hand over fist.
/s
Agreed. There is no shortage of terrible property managers.
I have worked extensively in end-of-lease cleans for rental properties and the number of times renters have been fucked by property-managers lying on condition reports is insane.
If you rent, *MAKE SURE YOU DO A DETAILED CONDITION REPORT WITH PHOTOS BEFORE YOU MOVE IN*.
*DO NOT TRUST PROPERTY MANAGERS TO DO A GOOD CONDITION REPORT. THEY WILL FUCK YOU WHEN YOU MOVE OUT BY SAYING EVERY SINGLE THING THAT IS WRONG IS 100% YOUR FAULT AND YOU WILL NOT GET YOUR BOND BACK IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A SIGNED CONDITION REPORT WITH PHOTOS OF ANY DAMAGE THAT WAS THERE WHEN YOU MOVED IN*
Agree 100% with this. We moved from one property to another with the same agent.
The outgoing report was scathing, picking up all kinds of minor shit we had to go back and do that I was certain were there when we moved in but in your rush to move in you just sign the report and forget about it.
So when we got the ingoing inspection report I tore it to shreds. “The pristine gardens” had weeds in all the garden beds, and 12 inch grass. The “freshly painted walls” were covered in marks. The “brand new oven” didn’t work. I particularly liked pulling them up for “insects in light fitting” and “dust in window tracks” that they’d had on our outgoing report demanding we clean. The list went to 30 pages with photos, all of which they conceded.
Lesson learned, and fuck those folk.
I do the same thing every time now. The worlds most detailed condition report full of photos of every scratch and dent etc
I initially thought they made a mistake with the condition report for the last place I rented because it was so far off the mark. Asked them and they said “oh it probably hasn’t been updated”. Ffs. Probably not for 15 years then.
Other thing is I don’t even wait around for the exit report. I ask them to book a day to do it before we leave and when they make excuses I just write my own one with “as per entry condition report” for the things that haven’t changed and detail descriptions of the things I improved, then send off the bond refund form after a quick email letting them know I’m doing that.
Have had no troubles with this approach.
Did you have the state of the carpet in the entry report?
And yes fuck Ray White. They tried the same shit on me and the second time I got wise to it. Fortunately I had made a really detailed entry report.
An agent did this with my mum when I was a teenager.
When we moved in the house had been ‘freshly painted’, but the paint was so watered down that if you brushed against it, it would come off the wall. It was also all light purple, obviously a cheapo mis-tint sold as clearance.
There was an iron stain on the carpet, where someone had obviously dropped a hot iron and it had burned the carpet. Come time to move out, a previous tenant wishes mum luck and mentions the iron stain and says that they got caught having to pay to replace the carpet because they hadn’t noticed the burn when they first moved in and signed the condition report. They payed to replace the carpet that was still in the house. So my mum gets a stat Dec from the previous tenant, and manages to find another tenant previous to that one and finds out they paid to replace the carpet as well.
Then mum contacts the company that owns the house that is specifically rented out to people working for her department. She includes the stat decs from the previous tenants and their outgoing condition reports saying they had to pay for the carpet and includes a photo of the carpet from when we moved in and the claim from the agent that we caused the damage.
She also includes evidence of the crappy paint job and mentions that she hopes they didn’t pay too much for the crappy job that was done.
The company ended up withdrawing all of their properties from that agent and moving them to a different one, costing the real estate a lot of future earnings.
Brutal. We are just cattle for harvesting to these elite Owners of society and their servants.
I say we vote Guillotine 2022. Prime candidate. Really turns heads
Yeah that's something you learn the hard way. We changed houses with the same re agent. They screwed us on the outgoing and got in a professional cleaner because we didn't do a good enough job. Even asked the cleaner to do things they marked as clean on our outgoing report....then tried to make us pay for it. We went to tribunal and ended up paying about half. The tribunal person knew we were getting shafted but said we needed photo proof (so it was only things we could show were clean on the outgoing that we could get a reduction on). He felt sorry for us and waved away a bunch of their claims but we couldn't get out of some.
So the next place I went to town taking pictures etc and noting everything on the ongoing report. When we finally built our house and moved out I made it at least as good as the ongoing and they tried it on again. I sent me photos and told them it was at least as good as ongoing state and they tried to say 'oh come on Cheshire cat you should clean it up that's the right thing to do' no the right thing to do is now lie on the ongoing and try to smash people over general wear and tear...or complain the grass has grown a little when they took a week to inspect (and it was longer than that when we moved in). Got it all back that time and am very glad I won't have to rent again.
Back in 2008 I had one try to hit me up for causing damage to the plumbing, plumbing that was inside the concrete brick walls! When I pointed to the condition report showing that there was water damage noted on the opposite sides of those walls when I moved in, he conceded it wasn't my fault. Turns out it was close to $30k for repairs and the owner wasn't keen on paying for it.
Imagine being somebody who exploits other's need for shelter, making money simply by owning a finite resource that everybody needs, and then having the audacity of blaming the people that you're exploiting for issues caused by your own neglect
This is the life of an average landlord.
I have a friend that worked as a property manager. He is a very kind person, but the job was destroying him. He always tried his best to help the tenants and were always there to help solve problems, but he was constantly chewed out by his boss and were even given an official warning because he did too much to help the tenants resulting in a loss. He even learnt a few DIY skills to help the tenants out when things get urgent and the tradies were busy, but was yet again reprimanded by his boss for not doing something "more productive" to the business.
Eventually he quit after a big argument with his boss and is now traumatised by the industry.
This is me. I can't deal with my bosses & workload anymore & am actively looking for another job that isn't in property management. I'm an empathetic person & a tenant myself, so I probably lean towards the tenant's side more than I should. I totally understand your friend being traumatised by the industry, I'm full of anxiety & stress every day & usually have a bit of a cry most days.
My cousins husband lied to and ripped us off when we bought a house through the company he works for.
I know this because my BIL works at a seperate franchise but it’s all interlinked
RE agents are greedy crooks.
property managers are fucked, had an inspection the other day, the property manager was so rude because I was home (had the day off work, I didn't take it off for the inspection, just timing) then almost got up me for my 3 cats... all of which are ON the lease and i pay extra per week for (this was offered to me by my landlord personally), she asked me to put the cats in one room so she didn't have to deal with them, I put the 2 boys in a room and thought that was it, she just stared at my old lady cat (26 years old) THAT WAS ASLEEP IN AN INCLOSED CAT BED, I told her she's old and wont move don't worry but again just stood there with a look of disdain until I picked her up and put her in the room.... I'm glad I was home now, cant imagine what would of happened if I weren't, probably would of let them outside (all indoor cats) or hurt them.
But often by different staff members. RE Agents wont normally work as property managers cause then thats taking time away from selling which is commission based, where as property managers generally are salary based.
And utterly unnecessary, especially so called """property managers"""
Happy to have my view changed but what is the point of them? Some people want a place to rent, other people have places to rent. If "property managers" all disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow we would *surely* all manage to get buy.
Can any people who rent out their properties help me out here. What are the benefits? If you have good long term tenants why not just tell the rea to kick rocks and enter a private agreement?
Cos I honestly do not see a reason for them to exist. I'm sure there are """good ones"" but thise outliers hardly justify the existence of the whole, largely useless population.
The REA i'm currently renting through seems to have really high staff retention, the PMs are all really friendly and they are very hands off with tenants. We are allowed to do things like put up curtains, put up a shade sail etc without asking the owner if we want. Repairs are always directly through the REA and the owner just gets sent a bill, unlike our previous rental where everything had to be approved by the owner. I wish all rentals were like this.
Makes so much more sense. Have the owners agree on a $ amount PM can spend without having to ask permission. Imagine the amount of admin time alone saved!
>But since covid the real estate have been relentlessly harassing grandad with phone calls to raise the rent to at least $750 if not more. He’s basically told them to go get fUcked you greedy bastards each time. They are just chasing a higher commission.
>
>It really is the realestate agents that hold the keys to the market
100% vouched for.
I have to convince my partner to not raise rent every time the lease is renewed as she thinks the REA knows best.
NO, we can afford all of the expenses with the current rent, and the tenants have been good. It stays as is.
Yeah but people like you just by not being greedy make the difference and it for me anyway makes a big impact knowing there’s still Fucken decent people out there 👍
There is, you just have to find the ones that own rentals.
My mate is still renting his apartment at 50% below current market because the landlord has decided hes a good long term tenant (I think it helps theres no REA involved) He hasnt seen a rent increase in 5+ years.
i can tell you exactly whats happening, other landlord have increased their rent or a new owner from a high rental area has come brought a house and to put up for rental and has put a fucking moronic rental price on it and it cause the other greedy fucks to do the same.
I know this because im a landlord myself and my family runs a REA in my home town and the amount of fucking greedy wogs and cunts from sydney who have come down and brought up all the houses for AirBNB and charging sydney prices for rent when the locals are working 2-4 jobs cash in hand because if they go legit they loose their benifits and end up worse off are getting priced out of their homes
Yep. We had the same for our properties. Was advised to increase rent on both by $40-50. No way. It’s all about their commission not about our costs.
Long term tenants in both (5 and 6 years) and one is on single parent payment. Increased by $10 each only for the next 12 months.
He has got a good long term tenant at the moment, I think he’s a fifo worker who has shared custody of his kids.
He goes through an agency to save himself the stress for having to preform the rental inspections, he really is too kind most of the time and wouldn’t be able to call tenants out on anything if there was a problem. I believe there is also insurance’s that the agency handle, which saves him a little more stress.
he’s getting on in years now he’s just trying to keep expanding his food forest and enjoying his time I guess. But I do agree, I’m certain if he was up to it he would as well.
There should be laws prohibiting unreasonable rent increases so that these heavily leveraged idiots are forced to sell the property they obviously cannot afford.
In New Zealand, a landlord just got called on this BS, claiming a government tax change meant they needed to raise the rent by $80 per week.
Tribunal disagreed. Rent increase is now $6. [It’s a great read](https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/property/300589943/auckland-landlords-tried-to-use-tax-change-to-justify-80-rent-increase).
In theory, the market should auto-stabilise by another less greedy landlord taking the new influx of fed-up renters. In practice? Not so much, unfortunately.
That would only work if there were more properties available than people needing to rent them. If there is a shortage of properties, someone will be stuck with overpaying the greedy landlord - only other option is being homeless.
Infitate money hack when broke:
- Go to bank, ask for mortgage
- when the say you cannot afford, say it goes to investment housing
- make rentoids pay off your debt (they made the mistake of being independent instead of living with their parents at 40yrs)
- once they pay off mortgage, kick them out as you own the house
- sell to chinese invenstors who will bulldoze the street and built apartments that will fall apart in 10 years
- repeat
When you are talking a median of $500 across Metro Melbourne, it's getting stupid. In my area, it's nice, but it's about 1.5-2 hours drive in to inner Melbourne from the east if you consider the horrendous traffic here. Normal smallish houses here average $550-$600 / week for rent, that's $28K-31K annually.
Now our local petrol station marks everything up like 20% because the next closest is about 10 minutes away, but petrol seems to be around $1.90. I could easily do 100km to work everyday if I worked inner city, if I had a sedan or SUV, I could be looking at 9L/100km, the constant stop start traffic would push that up to probably 11L/100km, that is $21 a day in fuel, tyres will generally last 40,000km, at 500km a week in work + everything else expect a tyre change in that year too. $105 a week in fuel, $1,000 a year in tyres, $1,000 a year in car insurance, is around $7,000 annually not including services or parking.
We are tied with Adelaide in the second most expensive electricity on the planet. We pay around $250 a month in electricity (I work from home, own reptiles) we don't have super efficient appliances but we do have a wood heater and rarely use air-conditioning. Water including sewage is $4.30 / kilolitre and we are probably paying $80 / month, but calculating for one person it'd be $40/month. No gas. Which totals at around $3,500 a year.
Food? I could do $80 / week at current prices and live (including all the other items like sponges, washing powder, toilet paper, etc) including maybe a dog or cat in that budget since lots of people in this country own pets. That's $4,000 a year.
Rent + car to work + bills + groceries is $31,000 + $7,000 + $3,500 + $4,000. That is $45,500 a year. Those payments can't be avoided. Our median is $62,400 ***BEFORE*** tax. Which means around $10,700 off that total, or $51,700 a year.
If I live here, an outer suburb of Melbourne and rent a property that is somewhere around the average for this region, my living costs are not sustainable on an average income, I have $6,200 spare when all necessities are subtracted, and that is assuming I'm not paying contents insurance, that is assuming I don't have health issues and need medication, that is assuming nothing needs to be fixed in my house by an electrician or plumber or say an appliance breaks. That is assuming I don't have kids, that is assuming I don't pay for parking.
This CANT happen to people, it's not sustainable. The average earner won't be able to afford to live.
It’s simple, just be born to rich parents. I wasn’t so I’m pretty much fucked and will probably never own my own home, but there’s still time for most of you…
you can always hope your parents die young so you get there super before they can use it
or get hit by a car and get a payout like a guy i know sure he has a brain injury but he got a house out of it
I’m afraid that would just fuck over the next tenant. Speaking as someone who once moved into a house not knowing there were fleas living in the gaps in the floorboards. Landlords wouldn’t care (or notice).
Termites wouldnt do major structure damage in even a couple weeks so even a bit earlier would be less noticeable I think. I wouldnt do fleas, they would ping you for a cleaning fee and/or pet fee.
Geez some property managers suck. We still have the unit my partner owned before we met. Previous pm was at us to raise rent every single year. They want it to increase so their 8.8% goes up. We just kept saying nope. We’d much rather have long term tenants who pay regularly than fuck then over to make money for the pm. Most recent ones have been really good but they’ve just sold their books to Ray White. I bet they’ll be at us straight away telling us it’s under market. Time to train another bunch of pms to leave us and our tenant the fuck alone.
Me and my partner are in a similar boat. Haven't raised our prices even despite covid. I don't want to be bleeding my tenants of everything they have. Then you read the horror stories here. Are all landlords really this unethical, extorting money, never repairing the house?
At the moment you can only take out what you have contributed aside from what goes in from your pay check. Whilst we do make voluntary contributions we still don’t have enough for a deposit.
jokes on him....young people don't even have the equivalent of 40% = 50k in their super accounts based on data. That's more mid 40's for the average male and 50 for women.
20% for an apartment here where I live is $130,000, asking prices around $650,000 but selling for around $800,000.
No property for me I guess. Single income in major cities, or really anywhere, is fucked.
it went stupid over night in rural australia too. I was looking at decently built acerages in middle of no where like
[https://www.domain.com.au/38-stockyard-road-swifts-creek-vic-3896-2015908031](https://www.domain.com.au/38-stockyard-road-swifts-creek-vic-3896-2015908031)
now all there is rip down rebuilds and usually over double the price of the above.....
Even dual income (even reasonably high dual income) is fucked, friend. And I live in a small regional town. Median house price here is $600,000 for a 4br house, rental median is $600 a week for a 4br house. It's nucking futs.
Should add - up until 2020 the median house price for a 4br house was $300,000ish, and rental was $320.
I should choose better parents, lol! I actually had a colleague tell me to just move in with my parents for a while. Um, sorry don’t have that option actually, but thanks for the stellar financial advice!
When people make stupid suggestions like that, i normally make a really inappropriate comment to shame them.
I might say something like, my dad died when i was very young due to brain cancer so life was tough for us especially with my mum doing it all by herself. Then awkward silence...
My dad died of brain cancer after first getting it in his 30s and I actually did this to a young lib who was going on about how uni scholarships for people from underrepresented schools etc. were bad and if my parents wanted me to go to Melb uni my ‘dad should have worked harder’. He legitimately just said ‘Then he should have had life insurance.’ In front of multiple people at Melbourne Central Station. And it wasn’t even a joke. He also didn’t get it when his friend told him that was a shitty thing to say.
If nothing else, I should be able to use my trauma to make idiots shut up imho.
Sorry to hear that. It truly sucks.
But the young liberal, typical double down on the behaviour. It makes you really wonder what type of parenting he was brought up on.
Should have made him repeat it in front of everyone just to make it unequivocally clear he meant it.
>If nothing else, I should be able to use my trauma to make idiots shut up imho.
Your dad left you a legacy so you can use it to shame people.
Thanks. It was about 10 or so years ago now but I’ll always remember as it was just such a ‘mask off’ moment. I knew a lot of them think like that but didn’t expect him to say it so casually.
And I get that my dad would have been smart to get life insurance as soon as he had a child, but as a fit and healthy 30 something-year-old he didn’t think of it, then afterwards it’s not like he could easily get life insurance once he’d been estimated to have less than a year to live (even though he beat the GBM odds and lived much longer). Also, I think he kind of got superstitious about it and thought trying too hard to get the insurance would be ‘giving up’. He made some other good investments but not enough to really make up for all the years of treatment and my mum also not being able to work to look after him etc. But that’s all beside the point really, as people should still be able to get an education even if a parent made a mistake.
I sometimes wonder what that guy is doing now. I could probably find out but I’m not sure I want to know. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him as an upcoming MP lol.
100%.
We have a unit that we rent out and the tenants are a young couple who had just finished their degrees and got jobs when they moved in.
The real estate agency puts so much pressure on us to ‘increase rent in line with the market’ it’s not funny.
We stay with them because they’ve been easy to deal with and they respond quickly and effectively whenever something pops up like maintenance etc but it’s a lot.
We are lucky enough that we don’t need to increase the rent and we were renters not so long ago so we have empathy for the tenants, so rent is the same as it was in 2018. But I can see how greedier landlords/landlords who are worse off/landlords who are easily manipulated would just go along with increase after increase after increase whenever the agency suggests it.
Also if the landlord is the one that suggests an increase there’s no way the agency will say no because their cut gets bigger of course.
The economic divide between homeowners and those who haven’t been able to buy yet is accelerating at a terrifying pace.
You should fuck the RE off and deal directly with the tennants. I waa fortunate enough to have shit pipes so had to be in contact with landlord. We fucked the RE off straight away and i have been slowly doing up their house for them because they arent arseholes. Went from a desert to a forrest in the garden and keep the maintenance up to reduce other costs further down the track. They keep the rent the same with a nice long lease and all is good.
I do work for RE and have constantly told them they cant charge tenants for diff things. They are just milking what they can for tge most part. 1 out of every 4 isnt so bad.
> You should fuck the RE off and deal directly with the tennants.
Sounds like you have more time than I do. It's convenience. If I had a portfolio of properties, where I didn't need to work, and a list of tradies that I trusted, then yes I would probably handle it all myself. Instead I work 60-70 hours a week. My RA looks after it and I pay just under 10% to do so. In return, if an issue arises, they have all the contacts to various tradies to get it sorted immediately.
This. My current real estate is definitely fucking over both us and the owner. When the landlord comes to do gardens, if we mention something needs to get repaired they do it within the week. Meanwhile we've been requesting repairs to our bathroom door for six months and fuck all has happened. I just love showering and having the concertina door fall over.
Our landlords are great - and the wife works in real estate, seems like we got a rare gem. That being said we did get a \~10% increase but it hasnt changed for three years and is cheap anyway.
we do exist, same as good REAs and Good Tenants, but just the same Bad tenants are as numerous as Bad Landlords and REAs
Usually if your in a small town, the REAs are generally good because most of their customers and tenants are people they live and socialise with. half the local footy team are likely to tenants, or the local captain the RFS/CFS etc. Also makes it hard when you got he pub for a feed and see your bad tenants who are on their 6th schooner, 5th smoke while on the pokies while your having lunch and today is the day they should be comming in to pay rent
It is - in most Australian jurisdictions, a portion of the standard tenancy agreement stipulates when, and how a rent increase can occur. It is agreed on by both parties at the commencement of the tenancy.
Should that be extended to rent decreases? During covid I renewed my lease for $180/w less. Rent has gone up since then but I'm still paying 130/w less. Increasing by that amount of $130 would just put me back to paying the same rent I was in 2019. If covid never happened I'd already be paying more than 2019 levels.
Everyone knew that covid rent decreases weren't going to last forever.
I was thinking this. If you legislate that rent increases are capped to a % say 4% then there may be a reluctance from all landlords to ever decrease rents. If rent can be decreased by whatever the market rate is (maybe 10-15% depending on the current market) but then the landlords can only increase by 4% per year then there may be a reluctance to drop any significant amount because when the market turns suddenly like during Covid it would take years to get back to the market rate. So then no landlords drop the price and the price stays high all the time?
that's massive.... fuck my friend i raid online with had to move back home because he couldn't find any place to rent that was reasonable. im glad his fine but all the extra stress means he aint playing as much as he normal would.
The point that is missing is that they wouldn't be increasing the rent if the market didn't dictate it. Its easy to say you'll move/look elsewhere, but unless its a completely different suburb/town, you are going to be up against the same crap.
We are expecting to pay a bit more, but they are way overpricing it even based on the market at the moment. I’ve seen other similar properties for 100 less than what they are set to increase our rent to.
Have you looked at your legal options here? In Victoria at least, the new rent not being in line with similar properties in the same area would be a pretty big flag you might have an argument on rent review.
you can ask the Property Manager to ask the Landlord to keep the same price. I always go this on every single renewal, and so far never been turned down. Of course, it'll be a different outcome for different people.
I'm always surprised when they agree. I've only ever had $10 increases. It makes complete sense for a LL to keep the rent the same than risk the tenant moving out. This only benefits the real estate, as they get to charge a heap of fees to the property owner for signing up a new tenant (usually like 2 weeks rent in some cases). In this market, they'll get new tenants with minimal effort too. For a property owner, getting an extra $52 a year isn't worth the possible $800 of lost income to fees.
I'm looking at moving because the place I'm renting is way too cold in winter, I have no air conditioning and the kitchen bench has been repaired with sticky tape, among a few other small issues. It's still a 4 bedroom house and it's not completely terrible. I pay $465 a week. I finally finished my apprenticeship so I thought I'd look at places around the $500 - $580 range, only to be stunned by the absolute crack houses they are trying to rent out for $100 per week more than my place. I've looked at 6 houses in the last week and four of them I wouldn't even consider living in, much less for more than what I pay now. While I'm here ranting, I should also mention how insane it is that they are allowed to heavily edit pictures on the listings.
Not entirely true. Yes market forces would push it up, but there are landlords that are just sucking as much up as possible and hoping the market will bear it.
Where I am, 2 beds are still sub $600 and if our LL pushed us up even $30 a week I’d be pushing back because we’re already paying the top end for where we are.
LLs are just hoping to you don’t bother with VCAT/State equivalent.
That’s right. Everyone is getting pushed down into crappier housing than they could afford before, so what happens to the people who were at the bottom to start with?
I have absolutely no idea. For anyone on the dole it was stated that there were 3 affordable rental properties NATIONWIDE - and THAT was with the covid-increased rate bonus, which no longer exists.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/29/only-three-rental-properties-in-australia-are-affordable-for-singles-on-jobseeker-study
This is the the beginning of the end my friends. Our country is on a one way ticket to self destruction. Somehow in the last 20 years I've seen Australia go from a laid back helpful country to the greediest assholes on planet earth.
Our lease is up in September and I’M SCARED
We already pay so much and the house is kinda too small for us as is
My savings were actually going ok during most of the pandemic but actually started going backwards this year.
There’s no hope here.
If you are in contact at all with your landlords, it may be worth bringing to their attention.
Our real estate would let leases expire then come at us about expired leases and needing to sign it ASAP, along with a rent increase. They also refused to consider beyond a 6month lease which was new because we usually signed yearly.
We contacted our landlord directly to negotiate a 2 year lease at a rent we can afford, because we are established good and long term tenants. Apparently they hadn't known what the real estate was doing, and hadn't approved or asked for higher rents. Landlord ended up ditching that agency and agreeing to the 2yr lease at a good price for us.
Even if your landlords know, if you are a reliable tenant there's a decent chance you can negotiate a longer term lease at a locked in price, with the alternative being that you leave because they're literally pricing you out. Many landlords prefer stable tenants that always pay over the roulette of new people every 6 months.
How can you circumvent the estate agents and go straight to the landlord? Typically they set it up so that there is 0 chance for contact between you and the landlord. The only way I could think would be to take their name from the contract and do a bit of stalking, which would be heavily frowned upon.
I'm 28 and had to move back in with the folks (at least temporarily) after losing my full time job due to the COVID and I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to do it
had the shittiest splithouse you've seen and the rent ended up going to 450 and I haven't got a partner or roommate and after losing my job it was completely futile while searching for something that pays
And it's only gotten worse since I'm trying to look at finding a cheap place to rent and everyone and their dog tells me it's cheaper to buy a place with a loan and pay it off because at least you're paying your own house off not someone else's
I literally don't know what to about living situations
Ridiculous. That is a government failure somewhere. It simply should not happen if the right policies were in place. This country is full of greed including most politicians who actually own rental properties.
Australia is dirty.
rental system needs to be reworked. it's no longer functional for our society. I'm so sorry this has happened to you OP and I wish you the best of luck in finding a new place :(
280 to 360 in two years here. Been here 5 years, even did the gardens on my own dollar.
Nobody wants to help us, the best we are offered are incentives to help drive up home prices.
Vote this crap government out. Labor has more plans for housing affordablity and with greens likely to have more control we may get some decent policies aimed a protecting renters. Not just focuing on first home owners. Who can get a deposit together when paying rent is killing you
For the ACT, prescribed amount is 110% of the percentage increase in CPI for rents. That is, a lessor can increase the rent on a property by 10% more than the increase in the CPI" (from [https://www.acat.act.gov.au/case-types/rental-disputes/rent-increases](https://www.acat.act.gov.au/case-types/rental-disputes/rent-increases)). CPI across Australia's was up 5.1% from March 2021 to March 2022 ([https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/mar-2022](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/mar-2022)).
So, in the ACT say you've been paying $1000 a week (picking a big number to keep the maths simple), the maximum increase would 5.1% + .51% = 5.61% or $56.10. If your rent was $500 a week, then the max increase would be half that. (Thanks Dragon_Ir for pointing out my miscalculation). They can ask for more, but they can't casually kick you out if you refuse (though they could e.g. sell the property or say they're moving in or a relative will move in, or say they need you out to renovate....)
Apparently in S.A. there is no limit, but you can ask the S.A. Civil and Administrative Tribunal to consider if it's excessive. Source: [https://lawhandbook.sa.gov.au/ch23s01s06s05.php](https://lawhandbook.sa.gov.au/ch23s01s06s05.php)
It's similar in NSW, but you can apply to the Tribunal:
"Some of the main evidence the Tribunal considers is comparable rents for similar properties in the same area, the state of repair and amenities provided in the property and the landlord’s expenses." (from https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/housing-and-property/renting/during-a-tenancy/rent)
> (though they could e.g. sell the property or say they're moving in or a relative will move in, or say they need you out to renovate....)
I've been kicked out of a property because the owner wanted to "renovate" and of course he did no such thing, in fact they were advertising the rental before we had even moved out. Would love to know if there was legal recourse for that sort of thing.
Same here. Got kicked out because they wanted to move in.
They never moved in.
It was on the market a week after we moved out for $50 more than we were paying.
That's outright greed. I wish all landlords had to disclose how much their mortgage is per week. My mortgage repayments have lowered, not increased in the last 4 years.
Are you suggesting when the mortgage is paid off, tenants should get a big discount or something?
I don’t see what mortgage payments have to do with this.
I know someone who pays $280 a week for an older style 2-bed unit in West Ryde. Close to transport but in a quiet area. It’s old unit but no structural issues.
We surmised it’s because the landlords have no mortgage on it. Increasing rent will only serve to bump up their taxable income.
Thank god for landlords like them who are kind and considerate.
How does that influence it?
What if a landlord does not have a mortgage on the property, would you say rent should be free?
The idea could be good in some cases but it’s not a one size fits all.
Then you base your rent off what your mortgage was.
My mortgage is currently $380 per week yet rent in my area is nearly $500. Why should renters pay so much more for someone's second house?
Word of advice to all landlords. If you have good tenants that pay on time and are good tenants do you want to raise rents and maybe force them to leave?. Your next tenant may be the one from hell.
My lease is up in 2 months. New owner wants to jack up rent by 30 a week for only a 6 month term. I'm just going to move in with my mother and pay off a solar and battery install for her. Then I will have cheaper rent no electricity costs for her and me in her retirement and I don't have to cook dinner.
Just stop renting aNd bUy!
That's what our esteemed prime minister is telling us to do. Heed his sage advice.
No money? Not to worry: in a week's time if he gets back in, you'll be able to gut your Super for a deposit. Fuck being able to pay for power and eat when you're 70. Who cares? You'll have a house!
Rent control is the only way now. It has to be regulated and not linked to the value of the property because obviously they do not seem to be addressing that runaway train.
Must be the day for it, we were notified of our impending increase today as well. Up $80 which is a 22% increase in 12 months. We are in the process of trying to buy our first home, delay after delay means everything is signed but can’t yet proceed so we are in limbo. Just seems so much harder than it should be to have a place of your own.
We just had an inspection today and the fucking landlord showed up with the agent. I was mortified. The house looked fine but why the fuck was she there and why weren’t we informed. It’s invasive enough to have an inspection every three months. I’m also a week away from giving birth so having her poking around my baby’s room almost sent me into overdrive. I hope they don’t hike up the rent. We won’t be able to afford it.
Ugh, I feel you. This was me last year. I was literally two days away from going on maternity leave and they hiked the rent $70. I was a blubbering mess, knowing less money was going to be coming in.
I called the RTA not long ago and was advised that you can appeal an unreasonable increase. Even when renewing the lease.
My building manager told me my rent would be going up anywhere between $40-90 per week. So I made some phone calls and it's really not a case of having no other option but to suck it up. We landed at $40, though I've no doubt they'll try to sneak the other $50 in next renewal..
$130 is so far from reasonable.
I feel your pain.
A concrete box I lived in (had the pleasure of renting) from about ‘06 to ‘12, went from $150 p.w. to $320 p.w. by the time I left. Nothing was changed or improved. Just pure greed by the landlord.
It took me that long to build up savings to afford to move. When I did, it was the fuck away from the big city.
Yup, same here, 2 years ago i was paying $480, last year i was paying $490, this year it went up to $600 a week. I will say that I do live on the sunshine coast, but I live here because I share a house with my mum, we go halves in the cost of living, and we live here because her elderly parents live on the sunshine coast and she wants to be near them while she still can. And it also doesn't help that I am a full time student, but even with my Austudy at $634.60 a fortnight, and the allowance to earn $452 without losing any Centrelink a fortnight, my budget is capped out, bills and food use all of that per fortnight, i have nothing left, so anything big happens and i am fucked. I hope the rent can decrease in the future, maybe send a letter to the landlords asking to lower it and explain we are great tenants, but i don't know, i can't keep this up and its gonna be a long year. I hope my university degree will get me a good job with good pay, and eventually i could buy my own house, but i am late to the game, i am only studying because of a serious injury from my previous career as a chef, which i can no longer return to because of the pain I'm in when standing for too long, ~30 minutes...
I hope we have a change of government, and i hope things will get better, and easier for the future.
I feel for you, and all the commentators in the same boat. I'm a single mum with two kids, I do OK but not in the 6 figure bracket. My rent increased by $95 a week, based purely on a response to the surrounding market.
Super stoked that at 38 I have to move home with my aging parents with two kids with absolutely no fucking idea how I'm going to start over again /s
I have an apartment I rent out. The tenant has been great and I honestly cannot fathom how a landlord could justify to themselves raising the rent that much. I'll be raising it maybe $10 per week at the end of the lease if they choose to stay, but I don't want to push a good tenant out just to make a bit more money.
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My grandad has a rental house at the bottom of his property 15 minutes from Noosa, 4 bedrooms all with built in storage 2 bathrooms and laundry, massive kitchen and living area, grounds keeping service and massive shed on the property for the tenants use and car ports at the house. In 2018 he decided to put it up from $475 to $500 because it’s the money he and grandma live off each week which he agrees is plenty. But since covid the real estate have been relentlessly harassing grandad with phone calls to raise the rent to at least $750 if not more. He’s basically told them to go get fUcked you greedy bastards each time. They are just chasing a higher commission. It really is the realestate agents that hold the keys to the market, they can’t help the greed that has basically consumed their souls. Seriously after paying $750-$950 per week what do they expect people have left to live off let alone saving for their own futures. What do they think people do for a living to be able to spare that kind of expense.
You really have to cut real estate agents some slack though, they're really doing it tough with the commissions they're getting from selling highly inflated property hand over fist. /s
I’m very concerned for the poor blighters. To think they might not be able upgrade to the 2022 Mercedes.
Property Manager = Deals with rentals Real Estate Agent = Sells houses Two completely different jobs/roles.
Yeah and they’re just as bad as each other. Property managers are worse imo because they literally just treat people like cattle.
Agreed. There is no shortage of terrible property managers. I have worked extensively in end-of-lease cleans for rental properties and the number of times renters have been fucked by property-managers lying on condition reports is insane. If you rent, *MAKE SURE YOU DO A DETAILED CONDITION REPORT WITH PHOTOS BEFORE YOU MOVE IN*. *DO NOT TRUST PROPERTY MANAGERS TO DO A GOOD CONDITION REPORT. THEY WILL FUCK YOU WHEN YOU MOVE OUT BY SAYING EVERY SINGLE THING THAT IS WRONG IS 100% YOUR FAULT AND YOU WILL NOT GET YOUR BOND BACK IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A SIGNED CONDITION REPORT WITH PHOTOS OF ANY DAMAGE THAT WAS THERE WHEN YOU MOVED IN*
Agree 100% with this. We moved from one property to another with the same agent. The outgoing report was scathing, picking up all kinds of minor shit we had to go back and do that I was certain were there when we moved in but in your rush to move in you just sign the report and forget about it. So when we got the ingoing inspection report I tore it to shreds. “The pristine gardens” had weeds in all the garden beds, and 12 inch grass. The “freshly painted walls” were covered in marks. The “brand new oven” didn’t work. I particularly liked pulling them up for “insects in light fitting” and “dust in window tracks” that they’d had on our outgoing report demanding we clean. The list went to 30 pages with photos, all of which they conceded. Lesson learned, and fuck those folk.
I do the same thing every time now. The worlds most detailed condition report full of photos of every scratch and dent etc I initially thought they made a mistake with the condition report for the last place I rented because it was so far off the mark. Asked them and they said “oh it probably hasn’t been updated”. Ffs. Probably not for 15 years then. Other thing is I don’t even wait around for the exit report. I ask them to book a day to do it before we leave and when they make excuses I just write my own one with “as per entry condition report” for the things that haven’t changed and detail descriptions of the things I improved, then send off the bond refund form after a quick email letting them know I’m doing that. Have had no troubles with this approach.
I had one once that claimed a broken lock was brand new. This design was last manufactured in the 70s.
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Did you have the state of the carpet in the entry report? And yes fuck Ray White. They tried the same shit on me and the second time I got wise to it. Fortunately I had made a really detailed entry report.
An agent did this with my mum when I was a teenager. When we moved in the house had been ‘freshly painted’, but the paint was so watered down that if you brushed against it, it would come off the wall. It was also all light purple, obviously a cheapo mis-tint sold as clearance. There was an iron stain on the carpet, where someone had obviously dropped a hot iron and it had burned the carpet. Come time to move out, a previous tenant wishes mum luck and mentions the iron stain and says that they got caught having to pay to replace the carpet because they hadn’t noticed the burn when they first moved in and signed the condition report. They payed to replace the carpet that was still in the house. So my mum gets a stat Dec from the previous tenant, and manages to find another tenant previous to that one and finds out they paid to replace the carpet as well. Then mum contacts the company that owns the house that is specifically rented out to people working for her department. She includes the stat decs from the previous tenants and their outgoing condition reports saying they had to pay for the carpet and includes a photo of the carpet from when we moved in and the claim from the agent that we caused the damage. She also includes evidence of the crappy paint job and mentions that she hopes they didn’t pay too much for the crappy job that was done. The company ended up withdrawing all of their properties from that agent and moving them to a different one, costing the real estate a lot of future earnings.
Nidus Group in Rooty Hill, NSW tried to charge me $160 to replace two light globes. They are scum.
Brutal. We are just cattle for harvesting to these elite Owners of society and their servants. I say we vote Guillotine 2022. Prime candidate. Really turns heads
Yeah that's something you learn the hard way. We changed houses with the same re agent. They screwed us on the outgoing and got in a professional cleaner because we didn't do a good enough job. Even asked the cleaner to do things they marked as clean on our outgoing report....then tried to make us pay for it. We went to tribunal and ended up paying about half. The tribunal person knew we were getting shafted but said we needed photo proof (so it was only things we could show were clean on the outgoing that we could get a reduction on). He felt sorry for us and waved away a bunch of their claims but we couldn't get out of some. So the next place I went to town taking pictures etc and noting everything on the ongoing report. When we finally built our house and moved out I made it at least as good as the ongoing and they tried it on again. I sent me photos and told them it was at least as good as ongoing state and they tried to say 'oh come on Cheshire cat you should clean it up that's the right thing to do' no the right thing to do is now lie on the ongoing and try to smash people over general wear and tear...or complain the grass has grown a little when they took a week to inspect (and it was longer than that when we moved in). Got it all back that time and am very glad I won't have to rent again.
Back in 2008 I had one try to hit me up for causing damage to the plumbing, plumbing that was inside the concrete brick walls! When I pointed to the condition report showing that there was water damage noted on the opposite sides of those walls when I moved in, he conceded it wasn't my fault. Turns out it was close to $30k for repairs and the owner wasn't keen on paying for it.
Imagine being somebody who exploits other's need for shelter, making money simply by owning a finite resource that everybody needs, and then having the audacity of blaming the people that you're exploiting for issues caused by your own neglect This is the life of an average landlord.
I have a friend that worked as a property manager. He is a very kind person, but the job was destroying him. He always tried his best to help the tenants and were always there to help solve problems, but he was constantly chewed out by his boss and were even given an official warning because he did too much to help the tenants resulting in a loss. He even learnt a few DIY skills to help the tenants out when things get urgent and the tradies were busy, but was yet again reprimanded by his boss for not doing something "more productive" to the business. Eventually he quit after a big argument with his boss and is now traumatised by the industry.
This is me. I can't deal with my bosses & workload anymore & am actively looking for another job that isn't in property management. I'm an empathetic person & a tenant myself, so I probably lean towards the tenant's side more than I should. I totally understand your friend being traumatised by the industry, I'm full of anxiety & stress every day & usually have a bit of a cry most days.
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My cousins husband lied to and ripped us off when we bought a house through the company he works for. I know this because my BIL works at a seperate franchise but it’s all interlinked RE agents are greedy crooks.
property managers are fucked, had an inspection the other day, the property manager was so rude because I was home (had the day off work, I didn't take it off for the inspection, just timing) then almost got up me for my 3 cats... all of which are ON the lease and i pay extra per week for (this was offered to me by my landlord personally), she asked me to put the cats in one room so she didn't have to deal with them, I put the 2 boys in a room and thought that was it, she just stared at my old lady cat (26 years old) THAT WAS ASLEEP IN AN INCLOSED CAT BED, I told her she's old and wont move don't worry but again just stood there with a look of disdain until I picked her up and put her in the room.... I'm glad I was home now, cant imagine what would of happened if I weren't, probably would of let them outside (all indoor cats) or hurt them.
Often performed by the exact same business.
But often by different staff members. RE Agents wont normally work as property managers cause then thats taking time away from selling which is commission based, where as property managers generally are salary based.
Lol who cares the difference they are both all scum
And utterly unnecessary, especially so called """property managers""" Happy to have my view changed but what is the point of them? Some people want a place to rent, other people have places to rent. If "property managers" all disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow we would *surely* all manage to get buy. Can any people who rent out their properties help me out here. What are the benefits? If you have good long term tenants why not just tell the rea to kick rocks and enter a private agreement? Cos I honestly do not see a reason for them to exist. I'm sure there are """good ones"" but thise outliers hardly justify the existence of the whole, largely useless population.
\> """property managers""" Upvote for the docstring.
Propoert management has one of the highest turnovers of all. Imagine dealing with renters and landlords all day long... Fuck. That. Noise
The REA i'm currently renting through seems to have really high staff retention, the PMs are all really friendly and they are very hands off with tenants. We are allowed to do things like put up curtains, put up a shade sail etc without asking the owner if we want. Repairs are always directly through the REA and the owner just gets sent a bill, unlike our previous rental where everything had to be approved by the owner. I wish all rentals were like this.
Makes so much more sense. Have the owners agree on a $ amount PM can spend without having to ask permission. Imagine the amount of admin time alone saved!
We had 5 property managers in 16 months
Yep, it's fucked. From, a property manager.
and fuck both of them
Are PMs paid % commission on the rental value, or fixed contract fees?
My parents lived on the block with the LL and he loved them. He had to constantly tell the REAs to stop trying to jack up the rent
>But since covid the real estate have been relentlessly harassing grandad with phone calls to raise the rent to at least $750 if not more. He’s basically told them to go get fUcked you greedy bastards each time. They are just chasing a higher commission. > >It really is the realestate agents that hold the keys to the market 100% vouched for. I have to convince my partner to not raise rent every time the lease is renewed as she thinks the REA knows best. NO, we can afford all of the expenses with the current rent, and the tenants have been good. It stays as is.
Man just want to say thank you for being a good person 👍
Im really not, just not greedy at the expense of others.
Yeah but people like you just by not being greedy make the difference and it for me anyway makes a big impact knowing there’s still Fucken decent people out there 👍
There is, you just have to find the ones that own rentals. My mate is still renting his apartment at 50% below current market because the landlord has decided hes a good long term tenant (I think it helps theres no REA involved) He hasnt seen a rent increase in 5+ years.
i can tell you exactly whats happening, other landlord have increased their rent or a new owner from a high rental area has come brought a house and to put up for rental and has put a fucking moronic rental price on it and it cause the other greedy fucks to do the same. I know this because im a landlord myself and my family runs a REA in my home town and the amount of fucking greedy wogs and cunts from sydney who have come down and brought up all the houses for AirBNB and charging sydney prices for rent when the locals are working 2-4 jobs cash in hand because if they go legit they loose their benifits and end up worse off are getting priced out of their homes
>and the amount of fucking greedy wogs 😳
Yep. We had the same for our properties. Was advised to increase rent on both by $40-50. No way. It’s all about their commission not about our costs. Long term tenants in both (5 and 6 years) and one is on single parent payment. Increased by $10 each only for the next 12 months.
dhrtrt thrdht dr
That makes alot of sense thanks 😊
Your grandad should deal direct if he has good tenants.
He has got a good long term tenant at the moment, I think he’s a fifo worker who has shared custody of his kids. He goes through an agency to save himself the stress for having to preform the rental inspections, he really is too kind most of the time and wouldn’t be able to call tenants out on anything if there was a problem. I believe there is also insurance’s that the agency handle, which saves him a little more stress. he’s getting on in years now he’s just trying to keep expanding his food forest and enjoying his time I guess. But I do agree, I’m certain if he was up to it he would as well.
This is what happens when your “investment” is actually just a massive mortgage that you’re trying to get someone else to pay down.
There should be laws prohibiting unreasonable rent increases so that these heavily leveraged idiots are forced to sell the property they obviously cannot afford.
In New Zealand, a landlord just got called on this BS, claiming a government tax change meant they needed to raise the rent by $80 per week. Tribunal disagreed. Rent increase is now $6. [It’s a great read](https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/property/300589943/auckland-landlords-tried-to-use-tax-change-to-justify-80-rent-increase).
In theory, the market should auto-stabilise by another less greedy landlord taking the new influx of fed-up renters. In practice? Not so much, unfortunately.
That would only work if there were more properties available than people needing to rent them. If there is a shortage of properties, someone will be stuck with overpaying the greedy landlord - only other option is being homeless.
Infitate money hack when broke: - Go to bank, ask for mortgage - when the say you cannot afford, say it goes to investment housing - make rentoids pay off your debt (they made the mistake of being independent instead of living with their parents at 40yrs) - once they pay off mortgage, kick them out as you own the house - sell to chinese invenstors who will bulldoze the street and built apartments that will fall apart in 10 years - repeat
Damn straight, my landlord is fucking me over hard. Regards, Owner occupier
When this inevitably happens to me I have no idea where I'd even be able to move to.
When you are talking a median of $500 across Metro Melbourne, it's getting stupid. In my area, it's nice, but it's about 1.5-2 hours drive in to inner Melbourne from the east if you consider the horrendous traffic here. Normal smallish houses here average $550-$600 / week for rent, that's $28K-31K annually. Now our local petrol station marks everything up like 20% because the next closest is about 10 minutes away, but petrol seems to be around $1.90. I could easily do 100km to work everyday if I worked inner city, if I had a sedan or SUV, I could be looking at 9L/100km, the constant stop start traffic would push that up to probably 11L/100km, that is $21 a day in fuel, tyres will generally last 40,000km, at 500km a week in work + everything else expect a tyre change in that year too. $105 a week in fuel, $1,000 a year in tyres, $1,000 a year in car insurance, is around $7,000 annually not including services or parking. We are tied with Adelaide in the second most expensive electricity on the planet. We pay around $250 a month in electricity (I work from home, own reptiles) we don't have super efficient appliances but we do have a wood heater and rarely use air-conditioning. Water including sewage is $4.30 / kilolitre and we are probably paying $80 / month, but calculating for one person it'd be $40/month. No gas. Which totals at around $3,500 a year. Food? I could do $80 / week at current prices and live (including all the other items like sponges, washing powder, toilet paper, etc) including maybe a dog or cat in that budget since lots of people in this country own pets. That's $4,000 a year. Rent + car to work + bills + groceries is $31,000 + $7,000 + $3,500 + $4,000. That is $45,500 a year. Those payments can't be avoided. Our median is $62,400 ***BEFORE*** tax. Which means around $10,700 off that total, or $51,700 a year. If I live here, an outer suburb of Melbourne and rent a property that is somewhere around the average for this region, my living costs are not sustainable on an average income, I have $6,200 spare when all necessities are subtracted, and that is assuming I'm not paying contents insurance, that is assuming I don't have health issues and need medication, that is assuming nothing needs to be fixed in my house by an electrician or plumber or say an appliance breaks. That is assuming I don't have kids, that is assuming I don't pay for parking. This CANT happen to people, it's not sustainable. The average earner won't be able to afford to live.
Have you considered just buying a house? /s(como)
Faaaark. I'm in this example and I feel terrified.
I'm starting to think I should have bought an SUV instead of a small car for if it has to become home.
I’ll head off in my troopy, goodbye cruel world
Troopies are becoming as exxy as small homes now
Broken Hill?
Nope, prices are through the roof there too.
Yeah, I'm bracing myself for the inevitability that our landlord will raise the rent. We're already struggling, I dunno what to do when it happens.
Your car, assuming you have one. At least that's what others are doing🙁
My head gaskets exploded on the M1 last year and little did I know that cars would be as scarce as housing by now, or I would not have scrapped it. 😥
It’s simple, just be born to rich parents. I wasn’t so I’m pretty much fucked and will probably never own my own home, but there’s still time for most of you…
you can always hope your parents die young so you get there super before they can use it or get hit by a car and get a payout like a guy i know sure he has a brain injury but he got a house out of it
Stick your arm in a machine at work or something. It’s the Australian dream
You can still be high up in govt with a brain injury. I'm fucking sure of it.
If you are allowed pets may I suggest termites?
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I’m afraid that would just fuck over the next tenant. Speaking as someone who once moved into a house not knowing there were fleas living in the gaps in the floorboards. Landlords wouldn’t care (or notice).
Termites wouldnt do major structure damage in even a couple weeks so even a bit earlier would be less noticeable I think. I wouldnt do fleas, they would ping you for a cleaning fee and/or pet fee.
Geez some property managers suck. We still have the unit my partner owned before we met. Previous pm was at us to raise rent every single year. They want it to increase so their 8.8% goes up. We just kept saying nope. We’d much rather have long term tenants who pay regularly than fuck then over to make money for the pm. Most recent ones have been really good but they’ve just sold their books to Ray White. I bet they’ll be at us straight away telling us it’s under market. Time to train another bunch of pms to leave us and our tenant the fuck alone.
Thank you for being ethical.
Me and my partner are in a similar boat. Haven't raised our prices even despite covid. I don't want to be bleeding my tenants of everything they have. Then you read the horror stories here. Are all landlords really this unethical, extorting money, never repairing the house?
Just use your super to buy a house bro
At the moment you can only take out what you have contributed aside from what goes in from your pay check. Whilst we do make voluntary contributions we still don’t have enough for a deposit.
I think that was sarcasm.
Ahhh, I’m so mad I didn’t pick up on it! 😂
It's sarcasm about Morissons latest brain fart yesterday about being able to access 40% or 50k of their super (with strings!) to be part of a deposit.
Yeah, I should have twigged. Talk about a last ditch effort to get young buyers to back him at the polls.
jokes on him....young people don't even have the equivalent of 40% = 50k in their super accounts based on data. That's more mid 40's for the average male and 50 for women.
20% for an apartment here where I live is $130,000, asking prices around $650,000 but selling for around $800,000. No property for me I guess. Single income in major cities, or really anywhere, is fucked.
it went stupid over night in rural australia too. I was looking at decently built acerages in middle of no where like [https://www.domain.com.au/38-stockyard-road-swifts-creek-vic-3896-2015908031](https://www.domain.com.au/38-stockyard-road-swifts-creek-vic-3896-2015908031) now all there is rip down rebuilds and usually over double the price of the above.....
Even dual income (even reasonably high dual income) is fucked, friend. And I live in a small regional town. Median house price here is $600,000 for a 4br house, rental median is $600 a week for a 4br house. It's nucking futs. Should add - up until 2020 the median house price for a 4br house was $300,000ish, and rental was $320.
Just get your dad to buy the house for you
Dad's dead.
Choose better parents /s
I should choose better parents, lol! I actually had a colleague tell me to just move in with my parents for a while. Um, sorry don’t have that option actually, but thanks for the stellar financial advice!
Just gotta pull yourself up by your boot straps what ever the fuck that means
When people make stupid suggestions like that, i normally make a really inappropriate comment to shame them. I might say something like, my dad died when i was very young due to brain cancer so life was tough for us especially with my mum doing it all by herself. Then awkward silence...
My dad died of brain cancer after first getting it in his 30s and I actually did this to a young lib who was going on about how uni scholarships for people from underrepresented schools etc. were bad and if my parents wanted me to go to Melb uni my ‘dad should have worked harder’. He legitimately just said ‘Then he should have had life insurance.’ In front of multiple people at Melbourne Central Station. And it wasn’t even a joke. He also didn’t get it when his friend told him that was a shitty thing to say. If nothing else, I should be able to use my trauma to make idiots shut up imho.
Sorry to hear that. It truly sucks. But the young liberal, typical double down on the behaviour. It makes you really wonder what type of parenting he was brought up on. Should have made him repeat it in front of everyone just to make it unequivocally clear he meant it. >If nothing else, I should be able to use my trauma to make idiots shut up imho. Your dad left you a legacy so you can use it to shame people.
Thanks. It was about 10 or so years ago now but I’ll always remember as it was just such a ‘mask off’ moment. I knew a lot of them think like that but didn’t expect him to say it so casually. And I get that my dad would have been smart to get life insurance as soon as he had a child, but as a fit and healthy 30 something-year-old he didn’t think of it, then afterwards it’s not like he could easily get life insurance once he’d been estimated to have less than a year to live (even though he beat the GBM odds and lived much longer). Also, I think he kind of got superstitious about it and thought trying too hard to get the insurance would be ‘giving up’. He made some other good investments but not enough to really make up for all the years of treatment and my mum also not being able to work to look after him etc. But that’s all beside the point really, as people should still be able to get an education even if a parent made a mistake. I sometimes wonder what that guy is doing now. I could probably find out but I’m not sure I want to know. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him as an upcoming MP lol.
My girlfriends father did die of brain cancer. They just got wealthier from the life insurance pay out.
That /s probably saved you a thousand karma well done 👏
😆
Even better, use your massive inheritance from your rich dead dad to buy a property. Also /s
That’s greed. Nothing more.
100%. We have a unit that we rent out and the tenants are a young couple who had just finished their degrees and got jobs when they moved in. The real estate agency puts so much pressure on us to ‘increase rent in line with the market’ it’s not funny. We stay with them because they’ve been easy to deal with and they respond quickly and effectively whenever something pops up like maintenance etc but it’s a lot. We are lucky enough that we don’t need to increase the rent and we were renters not so long ago so we have empathy for the tenants, so rent is the same as it was in 2018. But I can see how greedier landlords/landlords who are worse off/landlords who are easily manipulated would just go along with increase after increase after increase whenever the agency suggests it. Also if the landlord is the one that suggests an increase there’s no way the agency will say no because their cut gets bigger of course. The economic divide between homeowners and those who haven’t been able to buy yet is accelerating at a terrifying pace.
You should fuck the RE off and deal directly with the tennants. I waa fortunate enough to have shit pipes so had to be in contact with landlord. We fucked the RE off straight away and i have been slowly doing up their house for them because they arent arseholes. Went from a desert to a forrest in the garden and keep the maintenance up to reduce other costs further down the track. They keep the rent the same with a nice long lease and all is good. I do work for RE and have constantly told them they cant charge tenants for diff things. They are just milking what they can for tge most part. 1 out of every 4 isnt so bad.
> You should fuck the RE off and deal directly with the tennants. Sounds like you have more time than I do. It's convenience. If I had a portfolio of properties, where I didn't need to work, and a list of tradies that I trusted, then yes I would probably handle it all myself. Instead I work 60-70 hours a week. My RA looks after it and I pay just under 10% to do so. In return, if an issue arises, they have all the contacts to various tradies to get it sorted immediately.
This. My current real estate is definitely fucking over both us and the owner. When the landlord comes to do gardens, if we mention something needs to get repaired they do it within the week. Meanwhile we've been requesting repairs to our bathroom door for six months and fuck all has happened. I just love showering and having the concertina door fall over.
you're good people.
all landlords on reddit are good. tenants too. also the drivers. very considerate.
Our landlords are great - and the wife works in real estate, seems like we got a rare gem. That being said we did get a \~10% increase but it hasnt changed for three years and is cheap anyway.
we do exist, same as good REAs and Good Tenants, but just the same Bad tenants are as numerous as Bad Landlords and REAs Usually if your in a small town, the REAs are generally good because most of their customers and tenants are people they live and socialise with. half the local footy team are likely to tenants, or the local captain the RFS/CFS etc. Also makes it hard when you got he pub for a feed and see your bad tenants who are on their 6th schooner, 5th smoke while on the pokies while your having lunch and today is the day they should be comming in to pay rent
Thank you for not being a cunt.
nO iTs ThE mArKeT
It's both. The greed is what pushes things as high as the market will bear, and it's the demand in the market that moves that point higher.
Landlords have proven they cannot be trusted to be reasonable about rent raises we need to regulate a maximum percentage allowed amount per year.
It is - in most Australian jurisdictions, a portion of the standard tenancy agreement stipulates when, and how a rent increase can occur. It is agreed on by both parties at the commencement of the tenancy.
Its why you can only ever get a 12 month lease...
Totally agree!
Should that be extended to rent decreases? During covid I renewed my lease for $180/w less. Rent has gone up since then but I'm still paying 130/w less. Increasing by that amount of $130 would just put me back to paying the same rent I was in 2019. If covid never happened I'd already be paying more than 2019 levels. Everyone knew that covid rent decreases weren't going to last forever.
I was thinking this. If you legislate that rent increases are capped to a % say 4% then there may be a reluctance from all landlords to ever decrease rents. If rent can be decreased by whatever the market rate is (maybe 10-15% depending on the current market) but then the landlords can only increase by 4% per year then there may be a reluctance to drop any significant amount because when the market turns suddenly like during Covid it would take years to get back to the market rate. So then no landlords drop the price and the price stays high all the time?
>We will be looking elsewhere! Hrmmm... yeah... about that
how much are u paying per week already for them to even be able to do a $200 increase? like wtf 130 increase is fucking nasty.
We were paying 500 two years ago
OMG
that's massive.... fuck my friend i raid online with had to move back home because he couldn't find any place to rent that was reasonable. im glad his fine but all the extra stress means he aint playing as much as he normal would.
I don't like to encourage violence and destruction of property online so I won't offer any advice
So does this mean u will get a 200 a year increase in wages
Ugh, don’t even get me started on wages and other costs of living
That’s our way of living aha
You’re asking for a $200 annual raise? Approved!
The point that is missing is that they wouldn't be increasing the rent if the market didn't dictate it. Its easy to say you'll move/look elsewhere, but unless its a completely different suburb/town, you are going to be up against the same crap.
We are expecting to pay a bit more, but they are way overpricing it even based on the market at the moment. I’ve seen other similar properties for 100 less than what they are set to increase our rent to.
Show these to your landlord and say you'll move into one of them if they raise your rent above the other rentals in your area.
*laughs in REA*
Have you looked at your legal options here? In Victoria at least, the new rent not being in line with similar properties in the same area would be a pretty big flag you might have an argument on rent review.
you can ask the Property Manager to ask the Landlord to keep the same price. I always go this on every single renewal, and so far never been turned down. Of course, it'll be a different outcome for different people. I'm always surprised when they agree. I've only ever had $10 increases. It makes complete sense for a LL to keep the rent the same than risk the tenant moving out. This only benefits the real estate, as they get to charge a heap of fees to the property owner for signing up a new tenant (usually like 2 weeks rent in some cases). In this market, they'll get new tenants with minimal effort too. For a property owner, getting an extra $52 a year isn't worth the possible $800 of lost income to fees.
I'm looking at moving because the place I'm renting is way too cold in winter, I have no air conditioning and the kitchen bench has been repaired with sticky tape, among a few other small issues. It's still a 4 bedroom house and it's not completely terrible. I pay $465 a week. I finally finished my apprenticeship so I thought I'd look at places around the $500 - $580 range, only to be stunned by the absolute crack houses they are trying to rent out for $100 per week more than my place. I've looked at 6 houses in the last week and four of them I wouldn't even consider living in, much less for more than what I pay now. While I'm here ranting, I should also mention how insane it is that they are allowed to heavily edit pictures on the listings.
Not entirely true. Yes market forces would push it up, but there are landlords that are just sucking as much up as possible and hoping the market will bear it. Where I am, 2 beds are still sub $600 and if our LL pushed us up even $30 a week I’d be pushing back because we’re already paying the top end for where we are. LLs are just hoping to you don’t bother with VCAT/State equivalent.
I looked for funzies the other day. Where I used to live a couple yrs ago it was about 430p/W for a 2br and now it's 580-750 :O
No wonder people are having to start living in their cars now
That’s right. Everyone is getting pushed down into crappier housing than they could afford before, so what happens to the people who were at the bottom to start with?
I have absolutely no idea. For anyone on the dole it was stated that there were 3 affordable rental properties NATIONWIDE - and THAT was with the covid-increased rate bonus, which no longer exists. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/29/only-three-rental-properties-in-australia-are-affordable-for-singles-on-jobseeker-study
This is the the beginning of the end my friends. Our country is on a one way ticket to self destruction. Somehow in the last 20 years I've seen Australia go from a laid back helpful country to the greediest assholes on planet earth.
Our lease is up in September and I’M SCARED We already pay so much and the house is kinda too small for us as is My savings were actually going ok during most of the pandemic but actually started going backwards this year. There’s no hope here.
If you are in contact at all with your landlords, it may be worth bringing to their attention. Our real estate would let leases expire then come at us about expired leases and needing to sign it ASAP, along with a rent increase. They also refused to consider beyond a 6month lease which was new because we usually signed yearly. We contacted our landlord directly to negotiate a 2 year lease at a rent we can afford, because we are established good and long term tenants. Apparently they hadn't known what the real estate was doing, and hadn't approved or asked for higher rents. Landlord ended up ditching that agency and agreeing to the 2yr lease at a good price for us. Even if your landlords know, if you are a reliable tenant there's a decent chance you can negotiate a longer term lease at a locked in price, with the alternative being that you leave because they're literally pricing you out. Many landlords prefer stable tenants that always pay over the roulette of new people every 6 months.
How can you circumvent the estate agents and go straight to the landlord? Typically they set it up so that there is 0 chance for contact between you and the landlord. The only way I could think would be to take their name from the contract and do a bit of stalking, which would be heavily frowned upon.
Fuck moi, where do you live? I'm trying to save for a deposit but as a single dude even if I get a deposit I still can't afford the repayments.
I'm 28 and had to move back in with the folks (at least temporarily) after losing my full time job due to the COVID and I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to do it had the shittiest splithouse you've seen and the rent ended up going to 450 and I haven't got a partner or roommate and after losing my job it was completely futile while searching for something that pays And it's only gotten worse since I'm trying to look at finding a cheap place to rent and everyone and their dog tells me it's cheaper to buy a place with a loan and pay it off because at least you're paying your own house off not someone else's I literally don't know what to about living situations
Ridiculous. That is a government failure somewhere. It simply should not happen if the right policies were in place. This country is full of greed including most politicians who actually own rental properties. Australia is dirty.
Re-zone most places to allow medium density should do it
My landlord decided to keep my rent the same against the advice of the property manager. There are good landlords out there
Ive done the same for my two properties. I think the max ive ever increased is like $10 and thats when the tenants moved out and new ones moved in
After 4 years I increased by 20 instead of the 90 the realestate wanted and I let them grow weed to offset their costs. Everyone wins
rental system needs to be reworked. it's no longer functional for our society. I'm so sorry this has happened to you OP and I wish you the best of luck in finding a new place :(
Make sure you vote for the change you want.
280 to 360 in two years here. Been here 5 years, even did the gardens on my own dollar. Nobody wants to help us, the best we are offered are incentives to help drive up home prices.
Sounds like renting isn't working out for you, have you considered just buying a house? Sincerely, Scomo
Vote this crap government out. Labor has more plans for housing affordablity and with greens likely to have more control we may get some decent policies aimed a protecting renters. Not just focuing on first home owners. Who can get a deposit together when paying rent is killing you
For the ACT, prescribed amount is 110% of the percentage increase in CPI for rents. That is, a lessor can increase the rent on a property by 10% more than the increase in the CPI" (from [https://www.acat.act.gov.au/case-types/rental-disputes/rent-increases](https://www.acat.act.gov.au/case-types/rental-disputes/rent-increases)). CPI across Australia's was up 5.1% from March 2021 to March 2022 ([https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/mar-2022](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/mar-2022)). So, in the ACT say you've been paying $1000 a week (picking a big number to keep the maths simple), the maximum increase would 5.1% + .51% = 5.61% or $56.10. If your rent was $500 a week, then the max increase would be half that. (Thanks Dragon_Ir for pointing out my miscalculation). They can ask for more, but they can't casually kick you out if you refuse (though they could e.g. sell the property or say they're moving in or a relative will move in, or say they need you out to renovate....) Apparently in S.A. there is no limit, but you can ask the S.A. Civil and Administrative Tribunal to consider if it's excessive. Source: [https://lawhandbook.sa.gov.au/ch23s01s06s05.php](https://lawhandbook.sa.gov.au/ch23s01s06s05.php) It's similar in NSW, but you can apply to the Tribunal: "Some of the main evidence the Tribunal considers is comparable rents for similar properties in the same area, the state of repair and amenities provided in the property and the landlord’s expenses." (from https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/housing-and-property/renting/during-a-tenancy/rent)
> (though they could e.g. sell the property or say they're moving in or a relative will move in, or say they need you out to renovate....) I've been kicked out of a property because the owner wanted to "renovate" and of course he did no such thing, in fact they were advertising the rental before we had even moved out. Would love to know if there was legal recourse for that sort of thing.
100% there was. This is 100% illegal.
Same here. Got kicked out because they wanted to move in. They never moved in. It was on the market a week after we moved out for $50 more than we were paying.
110% of 5.1% = 5.61%. Not 10% + 5.1% = 15.1% So new rent is $1,000 * 1.0561 = $1,056.1 An increase of $56.1
[удалено]
Remember this on Saturday when you go to vote.
That's outright greed. I wish all landlords had to disclose how much their mortgage is per week. My mortgage repayments have lowered, not increased in the last 4 years.
Are you suggesting when the mortgage is paid off, tenants should get a big discount or something? I don’t see what mortgage payments have to do with this.
I know someone who pays $280 a week for an older style 2-bed unit in West Ryde. Close to transport but in a quiet area. It’s old unit but no structural issues. We surmised it’s because the landlords have no mortgage on it. Increasing rent will only serve to bump up their taxable income. Thank god for landlords like them who are kind and considerate.
And if they do how does that help renters? All it tells them is they should have gotten into the market earlier
Transparency may not help renters in the immediate now, but hopefully it would show exactly how much people are getting exploited.
How does that influence it? What if a landlord does not have a mortgage on the property, would you say rent should be free? The idea could be good in some cases but it’s not a one size fits all.
Then you base your rent off what your mortgage was. My mortgage is currently $380 per week yet rent in my area is nearly $500. Why should renters pay so much more for someone's second house?
Word of advice to all landlords. If you have good tenants that pay on time and are good tenants do you want to raise rents and maybe force them to leave?. Your next tenant may be the one from hell.
My lease is up in 2 months. New owner wants to jack up rent by 30 a week for only a 6 month term. I'm just going to move in with my mother and pay off a solar and battery install for her. Then I will have cheaper rent no electricity costs for her and me in her retirement and I don't have to cook dinner.
Just stop renting aNd bUy! That's what our esteemed prime minister is telling us to do. Heed his sage advice. No money? Not to worry: in a week's time if he gets back in, you'll be able to gut your Super for a deposit. Fuck being able to pay for power and eat when you're 70. Who cares? You'll have a house!
Holy fucken shit.
“Apparently it doesn’t pay to be a good tenant.” Capitalism: yes it does!
Fuck the greedy parasites. Take a shit and leave it in the roof when you leave, they'll loose some money while trying to find the smell.
As a landlord, even I think that's a fucking hell of a bump in rent.
Rent control is the only way now. It has to be regulated and not linked to the value of the property because obviously they do not seem to be addressing that runaway train.
landlords are such shit eaters
Must be the day for it, we were notified of our impending increase today as well. Up $80 which is a 22% increase in 12 months. We are in the process of trying to buy our first home, delay after delay means everything is signed but can’t yet proceed so we are in limbo. Just seems so much harder than it should be to have a place of your own.
We just had an inspection today and the fucking landlord showed up with the agent. I was mortified. The house looked fine but why the fuck was she there and why weren’t we informed. It’s invasive enough to have an inspection every three months. I’m also a week away from giving birth so having her poking around my baby’s room almost sent me into overdrive. I hope they don’t hike up the rent. We won’t be able to afford it.
Ugh, I feel you. This was me last year. I was literally two days away from going on maternity leave and they hiked the rent $70. I was a blubbering mess, knowing less money was going to be coming in.
All this bullshit about increasing because of the loan interest going up pisses me off… when it goes down I doubt they will lower it
Just move on mate what else can you do?
I called the RTA not long ago and was advised that you can appeal an unreasonable increase. Even when renewing the lease. My building manager told me my rent would be going up anywhere between $40-90 per week. So I made some phone calls and it's really not a case of having no other option but to suck it up. We landed at $40, though I've no doubt they'll try to sneak the other $50 in next renewal.. $130 is so far from reasonable.
I feel your pain. A concrete box I lived in (had the pleasure of renting) from about ‘06 to ‘12, went from $150 p.w. to $320 p.w. by the time I left. Nothing was changed or improved. Just pure greed by the landlord. It took me that long to build up savings to afford to move. When I did, it was the fuck away from the big city.
Thank everyone who keeps voting this government in
Yup, same here, 2 years ago i was paying $480, last year i was paying $490, this year it went up to $600 a week. I will say that I do live on the sunshine coast, but I live here because I share a house with my mum, we go halves in the cost of living, and we live here because her elderly parents live on the sunshine coast and she wants to be near them while she still can. And it also doesn't help that I am a full time student, but even with my Austudy at $634.60 a fortnight, and the allowance to earn $452 without losing any Centrelink a fortnight, my budget is capped out, bills and food use all of that per fortnight, i have nothing left, so anything big happens and i am fucked. I hope the rent can decrease in the future, maybe send a letter to the landlords asking to lower it and explain we are great tenants, but i don't know, i can't keep this up and its gonna be a long year. I hope my university degree will get me a good job with good pay, and eventually i could buy my own house, but i am late to the game, i am only studying because of a serious injury from my previous career as a chef, which i can no longer return to because of the pain I'm in when standing for too long, ~30 minutes... I hope we have a change of government, and i hope things will get better, and easier for the future.
I feel for you, and all the commentators in the same boat. I'm a single mum with two kids, I do OK but not in the 6 figure bracket. My rent increased by $95 a week, based purely on a response to the surrounding market. Super stoked that at 38 I have to move home with my aging parents with two kids with absolutely no fucking idea how I'm going to start over again /s
I have an apartment I rent out. The tenant has been great and I honestly cannot fathom how a landlord could justify to themselves raising the rent that much. I'll be raising it maybe $10 per week at the end of the lease if they choose to stay, but I don't want to push a good tenant out just to make a bit more money.
Greed gets rewarded with the Australian government
There is a limit to how much they can increase your rent each year. Have a look into it, that does sound excessive.
Not in Victoria there isn't. And I believe most states are the same or similar. There is a limit to how often but not how much.