CITY RENT PASS MARK

A NEW report on the costs faced by families renting on the private housing market has given Geelong a tick of approval — just.

The report moderates levels of rental stress among tenants in three-bedroom houses across the city’s south and west.

For the first time the report by not-for-profit community housing provider Compass Housing estimated the weekly incomes families should be earning to rent affordably.

The Affordable Housing Income Gap Report drew data from the ABS and Victoria’s Department of Human Services to paint the picture of Geelong’s private housing market.

It found that Geelong renters were paying just under the threshold of 30 per cent of their weekly income to put a roof over their heads.

The report showed Geelong renters’ median weekly income gave a $93 a week buffer of affordability over all property types.

But Geelong scored the worst out of Victoria’s regional cities, with several suburbs identified as moderately unaffordable.

Moderate levels of housing stress were found for tenants of three-bedroom houses across Geelong’s southern suburbs, including Belmont and Grovedale, the inner west including Geelong West, Herne Hill and Newtown, and in Lara.

The worst was in Newtown, where the report estimated a $157-a-week gap in rent affordability. But a flaw in the findings assumed the same $1176 a week median income for households renting across the entire city, giving Corio an extremely favourable result, estimating tenants had a $276 a week buffer before their rent became too expensive.

According to the 2016 census, the median weekly income in Corio was $914, which would be $14 above the threshold.

Compass spokesman Martin Kennedy said a decision was made to use the median income of a family renting across all suburbs, because other data for renters in individual suburbs was not available. Mr Kennedy said the findings showed housing stress wasn’t just a problem for lowincome households.

“We tend to hear a lot about the plight of aspiring firsthome buyers, but we don’t hear about the lived experience of people on an average income who are renting,” he said.

“When purchase prices are very expensive, the result is people who in previous generations would have been homeowners are stuck in the rental market. At the other end of the spectrum, people who in previous generations would have been social housing tenants are clinging to the bottom few rungs of the private rental ladder.”

Mr Kennedy said median rents nationally had increased 76 per cent since 2000, while median incomes had risen 40 per cent.