Despite the scaremongering, Greens claim wins for renters rights

Well said Ricky Toms

Bek Clark yes too bad if the owner wants their property back because it’s cost you money to move and is disruptive for you.

I used to have a rental property and I would have been willing to give longer leases, although no tenant inquired about one. However, I would prefer first for the tenant to have a year lease, so that I could judge what sort of tenant they were, and then good tenants I would have been prepared to give longer leases to. I had tenants from bad, okay to brilliant tenants. (The funny thing is that one of my very best tenants had a criminal record, although I didn’t know this until later.) In practice, although they only had an initial 12 month lease, most tenancies went on for as long as the tenant wanted, and if they were a good tenant I was also likely not to raise the rent, even though the agent suggested this. I only rented this house out for seven years though, as I planned to live there myself, so I wouldn’t have wanted to give a tenant a lease that went for years. But two or three years would have been okay for the right tenant.

Adam Horner well said! I will sell my place before I rent it again. Or I will ONLY rent it to people I know. This equally will disadvantage renters. Too risky and landlords are out of pocket enough!!

If you can’t afford your investment property, it’s a bad investment.

Ashley Latimer it wasn’t 7 years ago before the ACT Gov started approving residential skyscrapers on every street corner dropping apartment values by 10 to 15% while raising rates and tax by 300%. But your right, it is a bad investment which means less people will be investing, less rental properties on the market, higher rents and lower housing affordability. Loss / loss for everyone, landlords and renters alike.

Tania Milovanovic we don’t have any problems with the people we have rented to, that makes us fortunate as we have the means to ride thorough this market insanity created by the poor gov policy. While we would love to sell so we don’t have to deal with the hassle, we just can’t justify the capital losses.

Adam Horner – excellent post Adam & I have made similar posts here as well. Where are the Canberra Liberals on this?

this argument run by landlords (and often by the liberal party and property groups) that investors walking away will reduce the available rental properties is completely wrong. Unless of course, the investor demolishes the property and literally just walks away? In reality, they will sell. Either to another investor or to a renter. Either way, net result = no decrease in dwellings for renters. In fact the best result for renters is for investors to desert the market. I urge you all to do this

Dylan Durie the rental market has risen by around 18% in the last two years while losses for landlords (between capital losses and net income) continues to grow. Is that not evidence that there is a basis for the “scaremongering”? How is that good for either side of the ledger? There is a happy medium which would provide affordable rent and modest returns for mum and dad investors trying to avoid the pension in their golden years. At the moment everyone is losing, it isn’t about greedy landlords trying to squeeze every last penny out of renters.

Adam Horner and to add to that, strata companies are becoming extremely costly. Our strata costs went up neatly 40% in 12 months. Yes I know as a unit owner there is a need to shop around but these companies are raising the costs because of the increased demand.

Adam Horner basically you’re saying that somebody who can’t afford to buy their own place, quite possibly in the prime of their wage earning life, should be giving you an investment return and funding you’re retirement. Or in other words, you’re utilising the fact that you’re in a stronger economic position than the renter, and exploiting that strength to increase the disparity even further. I know I can’t convince you, but many ppl are starting to understand the landlord/renter “relationship” is purely one of exploitation

Tldr Investors would sell, allowing the market to correct. This is long overdue

Dylan Durie I don’t read it like that at all with what Adam Horner was saying. Your perspective to me is also very one sided. I see that being a landlord assists those that can’t access a loan (for what ever reason) and have somewhere to live. Yes, a rental is an investment, but so is keeping your money in the bank. So when you weigh up the costs of keeping your investment to at least maintain the value of what you put in… it isn’t adding up as to having a rental property.
I also add, just because someone can have an investment property doesn’t necessarily mean they earn a lot of money either.
On that note…
I know pensioners who can save and budget for an overseas trip (I’m talking just relying on what the basic pension rate is) where others can’t. No two peoples financial situation is the same.
Ultimately though, is that no, landlords sometimes aren’t covering their costs by what the rent is so to say all landlord renter relationship is exploitation that is not accurate.

Dylan Durie saying that we are exploiting people is completely insulting and down right wrong. Yes, we are looking for a return (which to date we haven’t got, in fact we are subsiding people who aren’t “in a stronger economic position” than us to the tune of $20k per year), but that still can be done in an ethical and community minded way. Government seeks private investment in all sorts of ways, if you didn’t have private investors then who would provide housing? The government doesn’t have the resources to do it sustainably so what, are you going to leave it to profit orientated multinational corporations, surely they won’t exploit anyone? So maybe we can look at not for profits, but they have admin overheads that will need to covered so they will be seeking a return to cover those costs. So, we’re back to Government, even if they could I know from personal experience that they also seek returns charging high rent and poorly maintaining a number of their properties to meet their economic goals. There is no perfect model but there is a lot of mutually beneficial goals that can be achieved in the current model. If you think landlord are evil, what’s your suggestion???

Sarah Emmerson yes. strata fees are THE issue. And it’s only going to get worse here in Canberra.

Adam Horner My suggestion is that just like education and healthcare, the government should treat housing as a basic human right and ensure it is provided to everybody. We are guaranteed a place in public school, and guaranteed coverage by Medicare, but what use is either when you can’t afford a secure roof over your head?

Adam Horner it may have been a good investment 7 years ago. Investors don’t hold onto their investments when they become bad investments.

Sarah Emmerson again, if a landlord can’t cover the cost of their investment property, it👏is👏a👏bad👏investment👏

Dylan Durie If the government had to supply housing for a large chunk of the population, you could not expect a house or flat; more like a small room in a hostel at most, with the bathroom down the hall. Rather like the accommodation I started out in. But I still had to pay for that, and it wasn’t cheap. Also, expect taxes to cover this to go up considerably. There were families living there too, although they got bigger rooms, which no doubt cost more than my tiny room.

Dylan Durie Sounds like a familiar idea. Yeah, it’s called communism.

Danielle Smith agree! Not all tenants are the same. Between landlord and tenant should be mutual agreement and respect. Things can happen with or without pets. I think the real problem today is coming up with the rental bond. Maybe the Government should commit to help with that

Judith Scerri my pet is an inside animal 🤷‍♀️

Having pets inside a house is not a necessity, its a choice

Judith Scerri a choice made by most pet owners that love their pets. In some countries it’s now illegal to leave your dog outside for more than an hour.

Rentals are at a premium in Canberra so the landlord will just choose the application from the person who doesn’t have a pet.

Carla Rose I think that law is absolutely crazy! I’m glad Australia hasn’t come to that yet. Dogs are animals, who naturally belong outside!
I’m just saying it is not exactly ‘progress’ in the Canberra rental market to make amendments in regards to pets

Kelly Soli not at all cruel.. I am entitled to my opinion. Just because people buy pets that do not belong in our climate does not change the fact that naturally animals live outside. Homes are the invention of, and made for humans

Why would you get a pet if all you do is keep it outside?

Judith Scerri cats must be indoors in many Canberra suburbs

Also Cathy Dearnley Cat containment means that your pet cat does not leave your property. It does not mean you must keep it indoors

Humans originally lived in caves too. Judith are your ready to give up your double glazing and reverse cycle air conditioning?

Peter Major just watch bond returns getting reduced and claims to ACAT from unhappy tenants who destroy property and don’t want to pay to fix things like urine stained carpet and poorly done patch jobs on walls.

Andrea Kerr can the landlords sue the Greens and hold them accountable for a change

Graham Cox agree with you Graham … have worked for almost 40 years to get to a position to invest …. all I want is for my tenants to treat it with the same respect I treat my own home … unfortunately not always the case especially with pet owners.😢

Graham Cox I’ve been in the same rental for 4 years and have a dog. I am so appreciative of being able to stay here for so long and have copped the increases on the chin as it just being life. I have paid my landlord over $60,000 in the time that I have been here. I have just purchased an off the plan apartment and I am currently waiting for that to be built. In time it will become an investment property. I am of the belief that I want someone like me to be able to have a fair go in the rental market and be allowed the opportunity to have a pet. However, within the limits of what the apartment can have. You get good tennants and bad ones.

Graham Cox renters need to get over entitlement?

What landlords need to realise is that they are running a small business, that renters are their customers, and the
At these are very high paying customers (Canberra average is $30,000 a year) and thus ought to be treated with some basic respect.

Landlords should be grateful that someone is willing to pay them so much money – and honour the commodity exchange by respecting tenants rights. What could be more entitled than taking money but expecting to keep all the rights as well?

If landlords aren’t willing to respect the rights tenants get in exchange for that $30,000 a year, perhaps they would be better off investing in a different small business, not the business of providing people with homes.

And thus stop hoarding the commodity and driving up the market which is keeping so many people out of buying their first home.

Peta Moore There will always be landlords, however if you removed speculative investors from the market, house prices would come down to a level where the average renter could actually afford to buy a home. Most people stuck renting don’t really want to contribute to your retirement fund, they just can’t afford to buy in this insane bubble.

Michael Strand the usual way economics works is that higher prices mean that more housing gets built. One problem is that land is scarce, which certainly makes that effect on supply slower, but unless a lot of housing is sitting empty, speculative investment still results in more housing. Recent changes have been designed to make it unattractive to leave housing empty, and that seems a good thing to me. A major step towards improving the situation would be a reduction in population growth.

Sean Lawson gentry!!?? 🤔 I wish… 😂😂😂