The mainstream media (MSM) is full of stories of desperate families unable to secure rental accommodation.
Take this one from QLD:
‘Renee and Troy have been frantically flicking through real estate sites trying to find a rental after the owner of their old home gave them a 60-day vacation notice… ‘They are unable to put a number on how many applications have come back unsuccessful. ‘“We’ve lost count, but I would say well over 60 by now,” Troy said. ‘The rejection is taking a toll. ‘“It felt like we were being erased from the world. I just felt like we were nothing,” Renee said. ‘“I’m so lost right now that I don’t know how to keep going but I have two beautiful girls to think about at the end of the day and that keeps us going.”’
The situation is feeding into old arguments from the property lobby once again — that the reason we have high prices in Australia is simply a ‘lackof supply’.
Take this recent Sky News interview with Mark Bouris, Executive Chair of Yellow Brick Road Home Loans.
‘“How come I can’t rent a place”; Well you can’t rent a place because property supply is not there. “Who’s in charge of property supply, developers love to supply the market”; I’ll tell you who it is, it’s the government — either local, state and to some extent federal too.’
The thing is, what seems to be a shortage, with pressure coming from the property lobby to ‘increase supply now’, ignores one vital fact…
We have plenty of supply.
There are tens of thousands of properties sitting vacant.
The problem is, they’re not for sale or rent.
A few months ago, QLD authorities followed our lead over at Prosper Australia and used water data as a proxy to identify these vacant dwellings.
They uncovered a whopping 19,500 homes across lower Southeast Queensland that have water connected, but usage is so low that it seems no one’s been living there for months!
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