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A new report shows increasing numbers of Australians are being locked out of the housing market, with low-income Canberrans paying some of the highest rent costs in the country.
 
The Australians for Affordable Housing’s new analysis “Australia’s broken housing system”, released this morning, reveals an increasing number of Australians are dealing with chronic housing stress.
 
In Canberra, the situation is particularly difficult, with housing costs coming in as both the biggest item in household budgets and the fastest increasing cost – having increased 63 per cent over the last six years.
 
With one of most expensive housing markets in Australia, Canberra also has the highest proportion of low-income earners paying more than 30 per cent of their income on rent even after rent assistance.
 
AAH spokeswoman, Sarah Toohey said that in Canberra it is becoming harder for residents to secure affordable housing as it now takes 6.2 times the annual average income to afford the median house price. This has risen from being 3.4 times the annual average income in 2001.
 
“In the last ten years house prices in Australia have risen by 147 per cent while incomes have risen by only 57 per cent and in the last five years rents have risen at twice the rate of inflation,” said Ms Toohey.
 
Australia also has a shortage of 493,000 affordable rental properties which are available to people on a low income and there are now 173,000 Australians on public housing waiting lists.
 
From 1996 to 2007 the number of affordable public housing properties shrank by 30,000 despite an additional 19,300 properties being built by the Nation Building Stimulus package.
 
Over 150,000 people in private rental nationally are paying more than half of their income on housing costs, even after receiving rent assistance.
 
Ms Toohey said “Housing stress affects renters, first time buyers and home-owners. The ACT housing system is failing too many people and successive government policy settings have contributed to this failure.”
 
The AAH is pushing for government reform in order to make it easier for people to afford to put a roof over their head.
 

Some of the reforms include investing in more low cost rental housing, providing greater opportunities for low income households to get into home ownership, better financial assistance for low income renters, changing the housing investment tax arrangements that drive up house prices, and installing a single Cabinet- level housing minister responsible for delivering those changes.

By Emma Froggatt
The Canberra Times