Rental crisis: high prices in the inner city

Anthony Atra, a Leasing Consultant at Century 21 Surry Hills, said he’s getting up to 60 people coming to each house inspection. People are ringing up on Thursday offering 10 or 20 dollars more than the asking price because they’re finding the Saturday inspections too hectic, he said.

Lyn Ozanne, a Senior Property Manager at Laing and Simmons, Surry Hills, said she’s seeing triple the amount of people coming to open inspections since last year. I’ve been in rentals for ten years and this is the best I’ve ever seen, she said.

However for renters, current prices are causing a lot of grief. University student Bronislava Lee recently found a new place after weeks of trying and missing out.

“Uni students on low incomes, with no job security, could never get an edge over the other renters”, she said.

There are also claims that tenants have been evicted because of landlords increasing the rent. Sean Reynolds, a renter in Chippendale, said 10 tenants have been issued with eviction notices after the owner increased the rent for a whole block of units in Myrtle St.

Mr Reynolds, along with 39 other tenants, has taken the case to the NSW Tenancy Tribunal, because he says the uniform rent increase, which was up to $75 a week for some tenants, is illegal. What the landlord should have done is leave the current tenants alone and increase the rent when new people move in, he said.

For landlords, this looks like an increasingly unlikely prospect, as tenants desperately hold on to their dwellings, instead of vacating.

Anthony Atra expects prices could rise with another interest rate rise but doesn’t think they can go higher after the end of this year.

Source: South Sydney Herald May 2007 http://www.southsydneyherald.com.au/