In Queensland’s ‘feeding frenzy’ housing market, renters are paying the price
Queensland renter Anne Dirks has spent three months struggling to find a new home.
Brisbane last month surpassed Melbourne as Australia’s third-most expensive city, now just behind Canberra and Sydney. She said it has been a hard search, and she has been turned back several times.
One barrier: rent bidding.
Some forms of rent bidding are banned in Queensland, but Dirks said she has turned up to properties where a real estate agent had jacked up the advertised price on the spot.
“I had one agent say ‘Oh just so you all know the rent’s gone up $70, from $470,” she said.
“A big increase. I’ve got three young children so it’s really unaffordable.”
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
On Thursday, Queensland’s Labor government moved to ban all forms of rent bidding as part of a package of reforms for renters.
The laws would also establish a code of conduct for the rental sector, require agents not to collect an undue amount of information about renters, and set up a portable bond scheme, among other reforms.
The housing minister, Meaghan Scanlon, said the reforms eliminate a “feeding frenzy” common at open homes, where renters are offering more through rent bidding to secure accommodation.
“Currently under the Act, it’s illegal for a real estate agent to solicit rent bidding,” she told reporters.
“What’s happening in practice, though, is that essentially renters are going and offering more and it’s becoming a feeding frenzy, and it’s very difficult to regulate in determining who actually asked that person to pay more.”
Under the proposed laws anyone who accepts a higher amount than previously advertised would be committing an offence.
“More than 600,000 Queensland households rent. These reforms are about making renting fairer, safer and easier,” said Scanlon.
But many advocates say the laws won’t go far enough.
The Queensland Greens and notfor-profit organisation Tenants Queensland both want caps on rent and a ban on all no-fault evictions.
Scanlon also introduced legislation on Thursday limiting rent increases for the 30,000 Queenslanders living in manufactured homes. Most of them are old-age pensioners.
The Tenants Queensland chief executive officer, Penny Carr, is a supporter of the bill, and called on all parties to back it.
But she said they wanted a rental cap tied to CPI for people in the private rental market of the type that would now apply to owners of manufactured homes.
“I think that many of the arguments as to why you would impose a rent increase limit in manufactured homes equally apply in residential tenancies,” Carr said.
“There are many people – I think something like 40% of people on low incomes – in rental stress in the rental market. Almost half of the people who live in the rental market are living there with dependent children.”
Scanlon said: “We think that manufactured homes though are different to other types of home, in that people own the home.
“It’s not easy to just pick it up and move it and you know, it means that they’re subject to quite significant rent increases, even though they own that home and can’t leave as quickly as you might be able to in other arrangements.”
Scanlon said the state government was investing $160m to assist renters.
Greens MP Michael Berkman said even with the laws “rents will continue to skyrocket, renters will continue to be kicked out at the end of their lease for no reason and more Queenslanders will be pushed into homelessness”.
The Queensland Council of Social Service CEO, Aimee McVeigh, said the legislation offered more certainty and fairness in the private rental market.
“However, these reforms miss a golden opportunity to provide cost-ofliving relief and put a brake on rent increases,” she said.
“Also, right now, tenants can be evicted from their home for no reason at the end of a lease and these reforms do nothing to stop this.”
Housing data released on Thursday in Queensland shows 1,770 households have been allocated to social housing in the 2023-2024 financial year, with a reduction of 371 applications.
Single-person households or couples remain the biggest driver of demand on social housing.
The bill has been referred to the parliament’s cost-of-living committee. It is expected to be debated later this year.
It is the government’s second tranche of rental regulations, with a mandatory limit on the number of rent increases a year implemented last year. The legislation also banned some forms of rent bidding, but allowed tenants to voluntarily offer more than the listed price.