Kim opinion: Perth’s post pandemic housing crisis | Australian Markets

Landlords, which aspect of historical past are you on?

Perth’s post-pandemic housing crisis is so extreme it’s going to in all probability go down within the historical past books, in line with the Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre, so there may be a good probability your future grandchildren will find out about it at college.

They could ask you about what it was like in these heady days, when the quantity of WA households in housing stress nearly doubled over three years.

Your future grandchildren could someday quote the BCEC report displaying an further 694 rental properties got here onboard in the identical period the State grew by an further 119,000 people.

Perhaps they’ll cite the 76 per cent rental hike over 5 years, and ask what you probably did as a landlord.

Will you inform them that you just have been glad to unfold the nice fortune out of your ample capital beneficial properties over the period by holding rents average? Will you say will increase have been measured and compassionate?

Or will you inform them you exploited the desperation of Perth’s most weak people, by mountaineering the rent to the max, serving to you to improve the jeep and hightail it to Bali twice a yr?

I lately discovered of one specific landlord who rents out his 40 to 50-year-old, two-bedroom condo, set on one of Perth’s busiest streets, for $900 a week. It is overpriced by 25 to 30 per cent.

The tenant was initially a younger woman in her early 20s who signed on for the exorbitantly overpriced rental sooner or later within the two yr period when the emptiness charge was one per cent.

After she fell gravely sick final yr and will no longer work, her mother and father moved in to look after her and pay the rent.

The pair spend most of their week in back-breaking labour — regardless of their own health points — simply to pay the rent.