Voice of Real Australia: When a boom for some is a bust for others

Isaac Newton wasn't thinking about the Australian property market when he wrote his third law of motion. But it's entirely appropriate.

Newton's third law says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Hello real estate! As the property market explodes, safe and secure housing becomes increasingly out of reach for a certain portion of the population.

Add a pandemic to the equation; a wave of urban-centric relocation to regional Australia; COVID-related supply chain issues in the building industry and the rental crisis the nation is experiencing is very real. And no more so than in the regions.

Take the mid-west of NSW. Carinahh Robinson explained to Mudgee Guardian journalist Jay-Anna Mobbs the difficulty she faced in trying to find a home for her five children on a single income.

When Ms Robinson moved to the area in 2008, $300 a week could get you a "brand new three-bedroom home". Now she's struggling to find something suitable for double that a week.

"If I were to pay $600 a week, I'd be left with about $200. I need food for my children and myself, I have their daycare fees, the stuff they need for school, petrol. I can't do all that."

In Victoria's south-west, the situation is the similar.

Dozens of single-parent families in Warrnambool are living out of a car, couch surfing or staying in motels while many in a private rental assistance program have been rejected up to 50 times.

Figures obtained by The Standard from The Salvation Army's housing services show how significantly the system is stretched. Of all the data, the dozens of single-parent families relying on friends' generosity, emergency housing or their cars for accommodation is striking.

With the area's median rent now $420 and up at least 10 per cent on last year, one community support worker says the cycle is a vicious one and often the options are unsatisfactory.

"When you also have a lack of available social and public housing as well as a lack of storage options, renters face eviction where the only offer is a few nights in a motel and nowhere for their belongings to go. Alternatively, renters are looking much further away for housing," David Brozinski said.

And it's no different in Tasmania where the rental market is being squeezed by booming property prices. One disability pensioner told The Examiner he was hit with a weekly rent increase of $90 just before Christmas.

"I will have to try and absorb it as much as I can, but I can't really see the light at the end of the tunnel ... I think I will have to rely on handouts from places like City Mission," he said.

The skerrick of hope comes from Port Fairy where residents have taken town's rental crisis into their hands.

With about 40 per cent of the town's housing used as holiday accommodation, some houses can sit idle for more than 10 months a year. But now landlords are drawing up bespoke contracts which allow tenants to lease their home for the majority of the year, vacating at a mutually agreed period.

The arrangement has won favour with Simone Favelle who has lived with the arrangement for two years.

"There's so many people needing housing and here's a little model we've got going on," Ms Favelle said. "I can't see why it's not something people would do."

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