Premier Nathan Rees has agreed to meet with the Real Estate Institute for crisis talks as figures to be released today reveal vacancy rates have remained below 2 per cent for more than two years.
The situation is so bad that stressed-out renters have turned on real estate agents with one in three agents reporting either themselves or their staff have been abused and even attacked. Some agents said they had called police to remove irate would-be tenants from their offices and were being abused on a daily basis. Others said tenants had been in tears because they felt they could not compete with the number of people looking for properties.
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Police have also had to sort out traffic congestion as up to 30 or 40 applicants turn up for open house inspections. "It is the worst we have ever seen," said REI president Steve Martin. "The situation is now so grave we are unfortunately experiencing incidents of rental rage."
Sydney's overall vacancy rate is 1.2 per cent, no change from last month, according to the institute.
Worst hit have been the suburbs between 10 and 25km from the city centre where there was a 0.1 per cent drop in rental vacancies to 1.2 per cent over the past month.
Mr Martin said the demand for rental properties had outgrown supply by about three to one with Sydney's population growing at more than 1400 a week, almost double the number of rental properties available on the latest figures.
Mortgage defaults have also forced more families into the rental market.
Punitive taxes including stamp duty and land tax, coupled with a lack of land being released for new development, have been blamed for the stagnating market.
The institute has proposed that the State Government scrap the contentious land tax and offer investors a full rebate of their stamp duty over seven years with a partial rebate if they sell before that.
A spokesman for Mr Rees said that they had already been in touch with the institute to arrange a meeting and to listen to their suggestions.
St Vincent de Paul Society's Dr Andy Marks said the rental crisis was the hidden face of the housing affordability debate. "Politicians focus on mortgage holders but we need to help people who can't even get into the rental market, never mind the housing market," Dr Marks said.
