2 July 2024

Did I get lucky or has the rental market shifted?

| Naziya Alvi
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red for lease sign on white picket fence

Is it still tough to find a rental in Canberra? Photo: Supplied.

If there is one issue consistently making headlines across Australia, it is the rental crisis. I moved here as an immigrant on 1 May and was anxious about finding a house. Some fellow immigrants who arrived in Canberra a few months earlier shared distressing stories of facing 40 rejections over three months before securing accommodation.

Amid this crisis, as a mother of two school-aged children, I was determined not to settle for just any house but to apply only for properties near some of Canberra’s most popular public schools. It appeared ambitious without any local rental history, no local income, and only one reference to offer.

I began applying for inspections primarily in the suburbs of Garran, Aranda, Turner and Forrest. Friends and relatives who had gone through the churn advised me to arrive early to join a queue of at least 10 to 20 competitors, with some even suggesting the number could reach 30. Everyone would have to squeeze in and inspect the house within a fixed 10-minute slot, I was warned.

My first inspection was at 8:30 am. Adding drama to my day, it started to rain, and being new to the city and the experience, I was frantically running from one building to another to find the location and join the queue. As I spotted the signboard and rushed to see the house, it was just me and the property manager.

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Fresh with the horror stories of inspection queues, I assumed others had perhaps arrived early and left. I almost apologised to the property manager who, to my surprise, knew me by name. “Ah, are you Naziya? I have been waiting for you!”

The sentence put me at ease. There was no queue and no sense of haste. I grabbed the opportunity to discuss the likelihood of my not-so-“desired” profile that lacked rental history with him. Although I had a job, I was receiving a salary in INR (Indian rupee) and not AUD (Australian dollars). He assured me it would not be a problem as long as I had a salary and payslips to show; I could take the house.

By evening, I had seen four or five more houses. By the third or fourth inspection, I had become accustomed to being the only customer and being treated like a queen. My brother, who was driving me around, joked about how I had single-handedly shaken up the entire rental market of the city. One particular realtor, I recall, was so keen that he offered to give me the keys and possession of the house within a day.

Of the 10 houses I inspected in two days, only two inspections had another customer present. In eight inspections, the entire process was conducted exclusively for me. By the end of it, I realised I was perhaps the one the agents were competing for.

The next morning, I shortlisted four houses and began sending my applications. Here came part two of the horror story: “Ensure you reveal all your assets. The application must convince them that you won’t default.”

At 9 am, I submitted my first application. Exactly two hours later, I received a call from the agent congratulating me on my application being approved. Of the four applications, by evening, two more agents called to congratulate me for making it through the process.

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Interestingly, for the one house that had another suitor, I lost the bid.

The experience was entirely contrary to what I had prepared myself for. No one around me was ready to believe it. What did I do right? Did I just get lucky? Or is the rental market actually so bad that there are no takers?

People around me speculated on various reasons for my success. Perhaps my timing was good – most people do not move to Canberra ahead of its harsh winter. Additionally, students typically arrive much later in the year, and May is generally a lull period.

Perhaps I took all the right steps, such as quoting $10 more than the asking price and attaching documents of all my investments and savings in India to assure the owner I had sufficient resources. Or maybe this was Canberra’s warm way of welcoming me and making me feel at home with such ease.

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Haha, Garran, Aranda, Turner and Forrest. This is good. You can pay for where you want to live. This is all we landlords ask. See everone, it’s not difficult.

It’s great that OP was able to get a place and yes – the tide is turning in the ACT. It strikes me as wild though that even in this case – sometimes the only person turning up to inspections – she felt it necessary to offer above the asking rent. If we want to see rents start actually coming down, things will have to go the other way, with renters putting in offers below asking.

I would agree with Naziyah’s experience. I own a sunny and warm two-bedroom townhouse in Lyneham, in a lovely complex, with a big garden and yet I can’t seem to find a suitable tenant. Agents tell me rental prices have plateaued too. Seems Canberra is the exception to the headlines.

Welcome to Canberra, I hope you and your family have a wonderful time in the city. It’s a great city to raise a family in, particularly if you live close to high performing schools and have good access to public transport and community support and amenities.

To answer your question. Based on my experience when trying to help family or acquaintances get housing. I think you may have got a little lucky, but you brought some positives to your situation.

I see common factors in your successful renting journey that likely helped you ahead of others. You are obviously articulate, have a long term job, you can prove that you are reliable with a strong base of historical documentation that the rental agents could trust.

It may have been a different story for you if you were from a lower socioeconomic background, worked in a minimum wage retail or childcare job, were aboriginal or were less well educated, etc.

Hopefully Canberra can increase its public housing and its rental housing in line with our growing population and demographic changes, something this city has failed to do over the last decade.

Incidental Tourist10:41 am 03 Jul 24

Canberra market is counter-cyclical to the rest of Australia depending on federal budget. Sharp downturns always are prominent in ACT when there is a cut to contractor’s headcount or public sector or federal funding. The immigration intake does not have immediate impact to Canberra as most jobs require citizenship which recent migrants can’t have on arrival.
Indeed some rental segments appear oversupplied this time while others still have good rental demand for the right properties. But even in today’s market the author bends a truth a bit. While it is truth that she may only be one person at inspection there are still plenty of “bulk applications” from renters who don’t have credible income or no rental history and to whom landlords are still very reluctant to rent. So the part of story where agents approve “mother of two children” application without a job does not smell as a truth. Unless “mother of two children” also has a partner or a local guarantor who has good local history and a stable income which she put in the application and forgot to mention in the article to attract attention.

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