Cold air in Natasha’s old home gave her sores. In her new home, she can’t sleep

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Key points

• Unit rents rose the most in Ivanhoe East and the CBD. 
• Asking rents fell the most in Sorrento, for houses, and Ashburton, for units. 
• Experts say the crisis shows little prospect of abating. 

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Natasha Trickey had to move out of her Footscray rental to protect her health, but Melbourne’s rental crisis meant she’s been forced to compromise on location, price and sleep.

She had chosen to end the lease of her old home early. The home’s poor insulation was leading her to develop chilblains, sores on the skin caused by cold and damp conditions.

Natasha Trickey and her dog Wesley Meatballs Leaves Trickey. Trickey’s search for a rental was difficult, and required several compromises. Credit: Simon Schluter

Rising prices and rampant rental bidding caused Trickey to shift her search further out to Sunshine.

“I moved into the current place in April after kinda having to give up on finding anything affordable in Footscray,” she said. “I looked around and I kept getting outbid on properties. The agents told us, obviously trying to solicit more rent.”

Rents rose in almost every suburb of Melbourne analysed, the Domain Rent Report for the September quarter shows, as the supply of rental properties fails to keep up with demand.

The health professional’s new home is across the road from a train station, which disrupts her sleep. She felt she had little choice.

“One house I went to smelt so badly of mould, I could smell it from two metres away.”

Footscray asking rents for houses jumped 12.3 per cent to $517 per week over the past year, but Sunshine is cheaper and rose less, up 9.1 per cent to $420 per week, and the inner west hasn’t been hit as hard as other parts of the city.

The biggest rises in asking rents were for Ivanhoe East units, up 43.2 per cent in 12 months to $580 per week.

It was followed by the once-emptied inner city. Steep jumps were recorded in the Melbourne CBD (up 39.5 per cent to $600 a week), Carlton (up 37.1 per cent to $480), Southbank (up 28.4 per cent to $610) and South Melbourne (up 28.3 per cent to $578).

The growth in house rents was less pronounced. Despite comparable increases to units in Lower Plenty (up 35.4 per cent to $650) and Werribee South (up 28.8 per cent to $515), the next highest increase in house rents was in Glen Iris where they grew 22.3 per cent to an asking rent of $850 per week.

Domain chief of research and economics Dr Nicola Powell said unit rents had been under the most pressure once pandemic trends began to reverse.

“All the areas that have seen the biggest increases are in that inner to middle ring of Melbourne suburbs,” she said.

“Those migration trends have almost reversed to where it was pre-pandemic.”

Hockingstuart Yarraville director Leo Dardha said renters feeling market pressure were trying to be competitive.

“We have been seeing unorthodox offers from our tenants, whether it be a large sum of rent up front or it might be a longer lease or a staged lease,” he said.

“We are seeing strong demand, especially in the last 12 months. We’ve seen a significant decrease in days on market and increase in the number of people coming to our opens.”

Better Renting executive director Joel Dignam said situations like Trickey’s were playing out around the city.

“People have less money to live. Particularly, these days it’s pretty tough,” he said. “There are some people who can afford an extra $30 per week, but some others can’t.

“It’s really hard for people to find a place to rent. It often means that sometimes you have to move further out. And sometimes it’s worse, you have to accept a lower standard of property.”

Dignam welcomed the proposed strengthening of rental protections promised by former premier Daniel Andrews, but said they amounted to tinkering around the edges of a crisis.

They would include a ban on rental bidding, a ban on landlords increasing rent until 12 months after an eviction, and extending the amount of notice given for some evictions.

Trickey welcomed these proposed changes, but was sceptical they would be enforced.

“[Real estate agents] have no accountability to anybody. They are just ripping people off left right and centre,” she said. “They can solicit bidding, they can do whatever they want. They can actively discriminate.

“Unless there’s accountability of agents, nothing’s going to change.”

Real Estate Institute of Victoria chief executive Quentin Kilian disagreed that agents needed to be held more accountable, and instead said increasing the supply of rental would alleviate conflict in the rental market.

He agreed the sector was in dire straits, which led to poor outcomes for tenants and landlords.

“Crisis is a good word to use, it’s not one that’s suddenly exploded, but it’s been building for decades,” he said. “Not only this government but those around the country have undersupplied public housing for decades.

“That’s pushed everybody into the private rental market, and that’s a finite number.”

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