{"id":469574,"date":"2026-02-10T01:40:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T01:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/469574\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T01:40:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T01:40:38","slug":"the-solution-to-the-rental-crisis-is-clear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/469574\/","title":{"rendered":"The solution to the rental crisis is clear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leading independent economist Gerard Minack published the following chart illustrating the primary driver of Australia\u2019s rental crisis: excessive population growth via immigration:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Population-growth-vs-rent-growth.png\" width=\"540\" height=\"354\" alt=\"Population growth and rent inflation\"\/><\/p>\n<p>After Australia\u2019s international border was reopened in late 2021, net overseas migration surged, with just under 1.5 million net migrants arriving between Q4 2021 and Q2 2025.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NOM-per-day-chart.png\" width=\"613\" height=\"481\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"NOM per day in Office\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>As a result, rental demand surged and advertised rents soared, driving up the cost of living for tenant households.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Australian-advertised-rents-1.png\" width=\"562\" height=\"424\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Advertised rents\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Since the end of 2021, nationally advertised rents have risen by 31%, according to Cotality, adding around $8,500 to the annual cost of renting for the median tenant.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>With rental vacancy rates tracking near historical lows, annual advertised rental growth has risen to 5.5%, according to Cotality:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Australian-advertised-rental-growth.png\" width=\"609\" height=\"422\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"ADvertised rental growth\"\/><\/p>\n<p>This reacceleration of advertised rents suggests that rental affordability in Australia will worsen from its already record-low level:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Australian-rental-affordability-2.png\" width=\"574\" height=\"428\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Rental affordability\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The situation is made worse by the slow rate of housing construction in Australia, which is likely to worsen now that the Reserve Bank has commenced another tightening cycle.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Albos-housing-target.png\" width=\"580\" height=\"409\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Dwelling completions\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The rental market will remain tight unless the federal government reduces immigration to a level below the nation\u2019s construction capacity.<\/p>\n<p>Canada and New Zealand provide important counterfactuals. Both nations have dramatically slowed net overseas migration and population growth, as illustrated below.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Canada has recorded 15 consecutive months of declining annual asking rents, which has lowered the median rent by around 6.5% from its mid-2024 peak:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Canada-asking-rents.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"396\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Canada asking rents\"\/><\/p>\n<p>As a result, rents in Canada are tracking at their lowest level in 30 months, and the average Canadian is spending $142 less per month ($1,704 per year) than they were at the peak in mid-2024:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Canada-average-asking-rent.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"398\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Canada asking rents\"\/><\/p>\n<p>New Zealand also experienced a decline in rents in 2025, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/business\/584735\/rent-drops-for-first-time-in-a-decade-data-shows\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Realestate.co.nz<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/584797\/rents-are-down-but-how-long-will-it-last\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trade Me<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The number of homes listed for rent on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.interest.co.nz\/property\/137113\/more-residential-properties-available-rent-while-rents-are-falling-huge-improvement\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Realestate.co.nz<\/a> reached a 10-year high in January, up 12.8% year over year to 7,224.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The following chart from Justin Fabo at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.antipodeanmacro.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Antipodean Macro<\/a> summarises the rental situation, with median rents in newly lodged rental bonds outright declining and the growth in CPI rents (stock) falling fast:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NZ-rental-bonds.png\" width=\"653\" height=\"564\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"NZ rents\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Population growth has fallen well below the rate of dwelling construction, meaning that New Zealand\u2019s housing supply is improving:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NZ-housing-supply-demand.png\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Canada and New Zealand offer templates for solving Australia\u2019s rental crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Put simply, immigration must be significantly reduced to allow housing supply to catch up. The equation is that simple.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leading independent economist Gerard Minack published the following chart illustrating the primary driver of Australia\u2019s rental crisis: excessive&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-469574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469574","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=469574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}