Housing reform can’t come quick enough for Melbourne’s struggling tenants.
Hit hardest by the limited supply of rental properties and skyrocketing rents are low to middle income earners who are finding it near impossible to rent an affordable home within reasonable proximity of the city.
A recent survey showed that single income families, couples earning minimum wage and pensioner couples are priced out of the Melbourne rental market. Just a handful of suburbs in Victoria’s far north fell into the “acceptable” category as determined by the Rental Affordability Index’s sliding scale ranking suburbs from “very affordable” to “extremely unaffordable”.
The best option closer to Melbourne was Melton, 47kms west of the CBD, which still fell into the “unaffordable” category.
Adding fuel to the fire, in October Victorian vacancy rates fell to just 1.07 per cent, meaning it is extremely difficult to find a rental property, let alone one that is affordable for low to average income earners.
While the Victorian government has schemes in the pipeline to alleviate the dwindling housing supply, experts are saying that immediate relief is needed in the form of rental assistance programs and property investor incentives.
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