Couple face eviction just before Christmas after a brutal email from their landlord: ‘This is happening across Australia and will only get worse’
- The couple are being evicted after they were hit with a huge raise in their rent
- Couple had previously asked not to have their rent increased by $100-a-week
- Instead, they were ‘offered’ a 35 per cent rent increase – $170 extra per week
A couple are facing eviction just days before Christmas after their landlord raised their rent by an unaffordable $170-a-week.
The couple said they had ‘begged’ their real estate agent not to increase the rent on their property in Griffith, Brisbane by more than $100.
However, the agent instead ‘offered’ them an increase of $170-a-week – a price they can ill-afford, so they now face eviction.
The couple said they had ‘begged’ their real estate agent not to increase the rent
However, the agent instead ‘offered’ them an increase of $170-a-week – and they are now being evicted
Writing to their local MP, Max Chandler-Mather of the Greens, they said: ‘I’m disabled and have been unable to work for more than a year.
‘We saw you were talking about rent increases and we have a whopping one to show you: a 35 per cent increase and $170.’
The MP shared the couple’s story, along with an email from the estate agent detailing the new rent.
As well as the rent increase, the agent said an additional bond of $680 was required.
‘An email today – a couple in Griffith who begged a real estate agent to not raise their rent by more than $100. The agent turned around and ‘offered’ a $170 a week rent increase,’ the MP wrote.
‘Now they’re being evicted. This is happening across Australia and will only get worse.’
Figures earlier this month showed the shortage of available rental properties in Australia was at its highest level since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
And the outlook for next year appears to be even more dire, with double-digit house price rises now predicted for 2023 and investor landlords set to rake it in while tenants deal with sky-high bills.
A long line of would-be renters snakes down the side-path of a Sydney street waiting to see a $700 per week two-bedroom rental property in the eastern suburb of Clovelly
This photo of a crowded open inspection in Bondi (pictured) sums up Sydney’s dire rental crisis, where desperate tenants are competing for properties
Sydney house prices are expected to rise by 8 to 12 per cent next year when interest rate rises are paused, with Melbourne tipped to see up to 6 per cent increases and Perth up to 13 per cent.
Rents have soared an average 10.3 per cent in Australia since the start of this year, with the short supply of housing forcing families to share houses or shift into caravans, cars and tents.
The national rental vacancy rate is at a record low 0.9 per cent, according to recent Domain research.
The Rental Affordability Index Report by SGS Economics and Planning and National Shelter released earlier this month makes for even more grim reading.
The report found renting had become less affordable in every capital city in 2022 compared with last year and rentals in regional NSW, Victoria and Queensland were at unprecedented levels of unaffordability.
The RAI found 30 per cent or more of a person’s income was generally spent on rent.
The report’s lead author Ellen Witte said this was extremely taxing for people on single income budgets, including single parents and pensioners.
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