Laurel Soderberg, 78, never thought she would be living in a caravan park.<\/p>\n
The pensioner had been renting a cottage in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley when the real estate agents told her the rent was about to increase from $700 to $800 a fortnight.<\/p>\n
“I thought, ‘God what am I going to do?'” Ms Soderberg said.<\/p>\n
“That’s a fair whack of your pension.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Laurel Soderberg has made her caravan a home. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
Ms Soderberg said she felt “really sick in the guts” at the thought of competing once again in the cut-throat rental market.<\/p>\n
So she bought a caravan using money from her sister, who had recently passed away.<\/p>\n
“I absolutely wept when I got the cheque in the mail \u2014 thank you Patty,” Ms Soderberg said.<\/p>\n
Nearly two years later, Ms Soderberg lives permanently in her caravan at the Helidon Spa Eco Village, a caravan park just outside Toowoomba.<\/p>\n
She loves it and plans to live there for the rest of her life, alongside other pensioners in similar situations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Caravan parks are full as people desperately seek short and long-term accommodation. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
Permanent caravanners<\/p>\n
Helidon Spa Eco Village once hosted tourists and backpackers, but now is full of Queenslanders who have turned to full-time caravan living after being priced out of their homes.<\/p>\n
Manager Dale Cameron said it changed to a permanent caravan village last year due to the influx of requests, many from elderly people.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Helidon Spa Eco Village manager Dale Cameron (left) and owner Dean Cameron. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
“We’ve got another 26 sites that we’re going to open up purely because of the demand for permanent properties,” Mr Cameron said.<\/p>\n
“We have had families here living in tents because that’s their only option.”<\/p>\n
It costs $250 a week for a permanent caravan site, including power and water.<\/p>\n
Mr Cameron said some people stayed a few months, others a few years.<\/p>\n
“Eventually they get accommodation or get rental references off us because that’s all they’ve got,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dale Cameron has also been a rental referee for some former residents. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
He said he fielded about 20 calls a week from people desperate to move in.<\/p>\n
Mr Cameron said he would love to help more people, but there was only so much he could do.<\/p>\n
“[Home ownership] is just out of people’s reach,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I just hope things get better before they get worse.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Caravan parks are fielding increasing calls from people wanting to move in long-term. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
Regional rise<\/p>\n
Toowoomba, 126 kilometres west of Brisbane, is often seen as a more affordable and scenic alternative to living in the state’s capital.<\/p>\n
Over the past 12 months, Toowoomba had the highest growth in median house prices in Queensland, according to the latest figures from Cotality, which were released earlier this month.<\/p>\n
The Lockyer Valley is included in the Toowoomba region.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Toowoomba’s CBD has become increasingly busy as more people relocate to the regional city. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
The median value of a house increased by 17.1 per cent to $821,807, while the average cost of a unit rose by almost 20 per cent to $583,993.<\/p>\n
Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) Darling Downs chair Katie Knight said it was the toughest the market had been.<\/p>\n
“If you look across the last five years, collectively properties are up around 90 per cent,” Ms Knight said.<\/p>\n
“Whilst that’s great for people who are home owners, it’s making it even more difficult for new players to get into that space.”<\/p>\n
Ms Knight said the rental market was also becoming much tighter as more people from the east coast and interstate relocated to Toowoomba.<\/p>\n
She said Toowoomba had a vacancy rate of 0.5 per cent when a healthy vacancy rate was between 2.6 to 3.5 per cent.<\/p>\n
“Until we meet this demand of housing and there’s more supply coming to the market \u2026 I don’t see that changing anytime soon, unfortunately,” she said.<\/p>\n
Priced out<\/p>\n
At Helidon Spa Eco Village, stories of housing and rental unaffordability are shared over cups of tea, while pruning flowers, and during bin runs.<\/p>\n
Margo Hyde, 48, and her husband Andy left their Gold Coast home when rent jumped from $400 to $650 a week.<\/p>\n
“There is no way we could afford that,” Ms Hyde said.<\/p>\n
“We might have been paying rent but we wouldn’t have been eating.”<\/p>\n
Ms Hyde is on a disability pension and her husband is her carer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Margo Hyde and her husband Andy live in their caravan at Helidon Spa Eco Village. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
They used the last of their savings to purchase a caravan but struggled to find a caravan park that would take them in permanently.<\/p>\n
“There are some places but they’re full so you have to move around really regularly,” Ms Hyde said.<\/p>\n
“It’s very difficult, especially having a disability and not having a home because all my doctors and specialists are at the [Gold] coast.”<\/p>\n
Ms Hyde said the majority of residents at the caravan park were older people.<\/p>\n
“It’s really scary,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It shouldn’t be like this. We’re in Australia.”The ‘retirement strip’<\/p>\n
The Hydes live opposite to Ms Soderberg in what they lovingly referred to as the “retirement strip”.<\/p>\n
The three of them often sit out the front of the caravan and admire Ms Soderberg’s colourful garden.<\/p>\n
“My little garden gives me a lot of joy every day,” Ms Soderberg said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Margo, Laurel and Andy are neighbours at Helidon Spa Eco Village. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
She counts herself as one of the lucky ones.<\/p>\n
“I’m with all my friends, we all help each other out, and there’s some very nice people who live here as well,” Ms Soderberg said.<\/p>\n
“I see myself staying here till the end.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laurel Soderberg, 78, never thought she would be living in a caravan park. The pensioner had been renting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,78246,116015,189064,189063,7694,7688,189065,19952,10106],"class_list":["post-340341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-caravan-park","tag-caravans","tag-dale-cameron","tag-helidon-spa-eco-village","tag-homelessness","tag-housing","tag-lockyer-valley","tag-rental","tag-toowoomba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}