16 October 2008

Rental market becoming kinder?

| johnboy
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The ABC has a story on Australian Property Monitors data showing the Canberra rental market is finally softening.

    The latest report from Australian Property Monitors (APM) shows median rents fell by 2 per cent in the ACT in the September quarter.

    On a year-to-year basis they rose by a moderate 3 per cent.

    But Canberra’s median weekly rent of $390 for houses was still among the highest in capital cities, topped only by Darwin.

So next time your landlord suggests the rent should go up you might want to suggest otherwise.

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VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy11:25 am 20 Oct 08

I figured that owning property gives me some cred in this discussion, since I have an active stake. And believe me, you have no idea how many assets I own. There are also others here now doubt own more than I. In this this thread (and some other recent ones) I have commented because I offer a different viewpoint to many others, and am interested in the responses (even yours).

tylersmayhem10:50 am 20 Oct 08

Mine are all on the up and up, including the one I bought a couple of weeks ago.

It’s kind of sickening how you take EVERY opportunity to spout off about all the property you own VY. Ever thought of being humble?

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy9:45 pm 19 Oct 08

Mine are all on the up and up, including the one I bought a couple of weeks ago.

Toriness, $340 a week, which is about market for this area of Tuggers – except that private market properties at this price have curtains, garages, landscaping, decent sized bedrooms with built-ins . . .

[I was in private rental for years and am so sick of moving all the time that I will certainly pay to stay, but my point is it is inequitable govt housing policy to charge a so-called ‘market rent’ when the amenity is so far below the market it is supposed to reflect. And even more so if rents have actually dropped! I have never seen them reduce the rent, though theoretically it should happen if prices drop.]

Hardly easing , I have a 40 dollar a week rise on my place (I protested and they said it was reasonable)- one of those old govvies in Downer. They have decided to do an inspection (allegedly my landlord is overseas, and uncontactable- personally I don’t believe a word of 95% of what my real estate agent says) before they will sign a lease. Given the fact that there is nothing out there I can afford and I am hoping to stick with the one I have got, I find it hard to believe the rental prices are easing.

oops i misread your post on the # of places you had.. soz

id expect with the 100 point rate cut we just had + the highly probable 50 point we will get before xmas(and another 1.5-2.5% thru 2009), landlords will have a hard time trying to up the rent.. even cpi.
taking 1.5% off their costs, if paying P+I on their loans, will drop >220 a month on a 350k loan

but we dont live in a perfect world

felix if you had 2x2br apartments in canberra.. in 2 years they would have gone up 100k each and rent would be around 350-400 a week
but you would have paid more for them to start with

Felix the Cat8:17 pm 16 Oct 08

I own a rental property (2 bdrm townhouse) on the south coast near Nowra and I haven’t had a rent increase in over 2 years and the real estate agent is suggesting I drop the rent $10 per week to $220 to try and attract a tenant, as it is empty at the moment. If the place was in Canberra it would probably rent for an extra $100 per week.

tylersmayhem1:57 pm 16 Oct 08

Mine just went up last week too – within lease though.

Hey Sands – what are the circumstances for the raise within the lease?

I suppose you can blame poor old landlords having to raid the rent with all these interest rate cuts and all hey?!

Woody Mann-Caruso1:49 pm 16 Oct 08

We’re all very lucky people in the ACT because rent increases are legislated. Unlike some states, where ‘whatever the market will bear or the sadistic leech-creature you call Mr Landlord feels like’ is a good rule of thumb for how much your rent goes up, there’s a pretty tight formula for the ACT:

Take the CPI increase for ACT rents since your last rent rise. That rate, plus an extra 20% of that rate if the landlord feels like it, is the most your landlord can raise your rent without a ruling from the Residential Tenancies Tribunal. If your landlord wants to increase it by more than that amount – the CPI increase plus up to an extra 20% of that increase – then that’s what the law calls an ‘excessive’ increase, and the onus is on the landlord to convince the Tribunal that it should be allowed.

For example:

Bill’s last rent rise was a year ago when the CPI figure was 165.6 (June 2007 quarter). That rise took his rent to $380 a week.

Now the landlord wants to raise his rent. The CPI figure for the June 2008 quarter is 177.8.

177.8 – 165.6 = 12.2
12.2 / 165.6 = 0.073, or 7.3%
7.3% of $380 = $27.74
$27.74 + 20% = $32.38

So, the most the landlord can raise Bill’s rent is $32.38, for a new total of $412.38.

This was in Hughes actually, so it’s hard to find things there for that price… (the landlord is also going to rennovate, so we’d be getting kicked out eventually anyway.)

we’re going to be paying more for the enw place we’re moving to, but it’s much clsoer to work (I can walk!) so i’ll save on fuel.

miz said :

Yet my ACT Housing so-called ‘market rent’ just went up by $40 a week!

Burden on society. Your $1,000 Krudd handouts should help. Stop your whinging.

to what grand total per week, miz?

Yet my ACT Housing so-called ‘market rent’ just went up by $40 a week!

Mine just went up last week too – within lease though. What suburbs are you looking in for lower than $375 a week?

hmm we were just “offered” a rental increase of $55 a week. granted that would bring us only up to $375, so below the median…

but they didn’t offer us a contract, so we’re out.

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