Hot housing is everyone's problem
When rents are soaring, it's not only tenants who pay the price.
“Sydney is only really a thing because of family. Otherwise, there’s no reason to live here unless you hate money".
That was a message I received from a friend earlier this week. He lives about 60 kilometres away from the Sydney CBD but is now considering a tree change with his partner, a paramedic, because the rent is just too high.
It’s now 30.4% more expensive to rent in Australia than it was in July 2020, according to fresh data from CoreLogic, which found tenants need to find on average $137 more every week to pay for the roofs over their heads. But the spiralling cost of renting is not just a moral problem. It should also concern cool-headed economic rationalists.
The Committee for Sydney recently estimated that the overcooked housing market in the nation’s most expensive city costs its economy $10 billion a year.
