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Speaker 1: Research done by Adelaide UNI shows that three and five

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Speaker 1: renters in Australia don't ever expect they'll be able to

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Speaker 1: own their own home. And given this is the land

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Speaker 1: of the white picket fence, where home ownership was achievable,

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Speaker 1: where a mortgage would be back in the sixties to

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Speaker 1: probably the eighties and earlier than the sixties, about three

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Speaker 1: to four times your annual salary. Well now it's ten times,

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Speaker 1: if not much more, it does become a lot harder.

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Speaker 1: From the Australian Center for Housing Research at the Union

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Speaker 1: of Adelaide, Professor Emma Baker on the line, Emma, good morning,

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Speaker 1: thanks for your time.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Matthew.

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Speaker 1: It's concerning, isn't it. Three and five? So they don't

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Speaker 1: expect to ever own their own home. They'll be on

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Speaker 1: the rental merry go round forever. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Look, Australia's undergone a real change in the way that

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Speaker 2: we have that population over the last few decades. And

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Speaker 2: you know, we seem to have gone from being a

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Speaker 2: nation of homeownments to a nation where you know, we

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Speaker 2: have many people have mortgages, but now there's likely to

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Speaker 2: be more renters than there are people who own their

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Speaker 2: home out right.

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Speaker 1: What's caused that? I had someone say to me recently,

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Speaker 1: it's all the first time grants when they started, house

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Speaker 1: prices started rising. Then we're going back twenty five thirty

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Speaker 1: years now.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think you know, the housing system is

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Speaker 2: an incredibly complex system. You know, it serves many purposes

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Speaker 2: and policies always very very difficult for government. I would

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Speaker 2: agree that homeowner grants probably in space at the housing market.

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Speaker 1: Can we go back? Can we unscramble that egg? Probably will.

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Speaker 2: Look, it's really difficult, but there's a lot of things

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Speaker 2: going on in the housing market at the moment, and

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Speaker 2: I suppose you know, one of the big things that

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Speaker 2: lots of people agree on is a lack of supply.

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Speaker 2: But at the same time, you've got lots of other

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Speaker 2: things happening, and you know, young people are just finding

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Speaker 2: it more and more difficult to make that jump into

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Speaker 2: home ownership, so people tend to be living in the

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Speaker 2: rental sector for longer. Now that isn't necessarily a terrible thing,

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Speaker 2: but it's a change for Australia.

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Speaker 1: It is. And to get a cheaper house or a

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Speaker 1: land package, house and land package, you've got to go

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Speaker 1: further and further and further out of the CBD, which

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Speaker 1: in itself, depending where you're working, et cetera, may not

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Speaker 1: be a bad thing, but probably for most people, and

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Speaker 1: especially in Adelaide as you know, I mean, it's the

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Speaker 1: sort of city living that we've grown up with, not

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Speaker 1: ideal to be living, you know, fifty k's out. Well.

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Speaker 2: One other thing that we've been noticing in the big

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Speaker 2: national data is this rise of rent vestors. So you know,

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Speaker 2: young people aren't just passive actors in the market. They're

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Speaker 2: doing really clever things. So quite often if we look

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Speaker 2: saying Victoria, we see that there are a lot of

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Speaker 2: people who live in Victoria but own a house in

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Speaker 2: Adelaide for example. And so what young people tend to

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Speaker 2: be doing is buying into markets that they can afford

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Speaker 2: to buying and maybe renting close to where the work is.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's interesting. So these aren't necessarily South Australian. These

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Speaker 1: are people born and bred in Victoria, never intend living

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Speaker 1: in South Australia necessarily, but it's cheaper to buy and

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Speaker 1: then rent it out and that affords your lifestyle back home. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Look, it's a mixture of people, but you know, people

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Speaker 2: are quite intentional in the way that they do it.

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Speaker 2: You know, they might buy into a more affordable market

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Speaker 2: but live where the work is. And also that might

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Speaker 2: allow them the flexibility to move around and accept jobs

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Speaker 2: that are going.

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Speaker 1: Okay, where's this going to end? I mean in adelaide

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Speaker 1: As you're probably are you talk to any agent, they'll

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Speaker 1: tell you prices in our city at least, unlike others

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Speaker 1: which rise and fall, in adelaide prices tend to rise

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Speaker 1: and then plateau and then rise and then plato. They

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Speaker 1: don't come down up. So is that firstly, is that correct?

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Speaker 1: And is it ever going to end? If that's the case, Look,

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Speaker 1: I think.

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Speaker 2: The gradual price rise of a national trend and at

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Speaker 2: Ladies conforming to that. I think the kind of the

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Speaker 2: wider discussion that's happening at the moment is, you know,

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Speaker 2: if if we've got you know, many young people who

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Speaker 2: will be lifetime rents, you know, what are the options

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Speaker 2: to make rental somewhere that you want to live? So

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Speaker 2: you know, when we speak to renters, we say, well,

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Speaker 2: you know, what is it about homeownership that you want

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Speaker 2: and how can we replicate that in the rental sector?

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Speaker 2: So you know, that might be giving rents more security

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Speaker 2: of tenure and giving them some protections when we go

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Speaker 2: in and ask them, you know, that is exactly what

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Speaker 2: they're looking for.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd be aware here in Essay, the Greens particularly

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Speaker 1: called and we've made some changes your pets in rental,

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Speaker 1: accommodation and some other things as well. But I think

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Speaker 1: some policies are anti landlord. And I'm not a landlord,

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Speaker 1: so I'm happy to go into bat for them or

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Speaker 1: the renters for that matter. But the harder it is

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Speaker 1: for a landlord, the less likely it's going to be

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Speaker 1: they're going to keep a property available for a renter,

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Speaker 1: and the long term rental market inevitably might suffer through

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Speaker 1: some more radical policies that perhaps the Greens and other

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Speaker 1: parties might want to put forward.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's really interesting. It's a complex question, but

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Speaker 2: you know, often when you speak to landlords, what they

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Speaker 2: want is a stable rental. So actually sometimes the things

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Speaker 2: that you can give tenants in terms of security of tenure,

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Speaker 2: a little bit more security than the short leaf length

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Speaker 2: is actually beneficial to both landlords and tenants. It's cheap

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Speaker 2: of tenants the landlords in the long run.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's it all right. Now your information comes

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Speaker 1: from the census I mentioned, and you must do your

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Speaker 1: own market research too.

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Speaker 2: Oh look the studies that that was released today. That

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Speaker 2: is a big collaboration across a number of universities and

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Speaker 2: what it tries to do is give this this look

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Speaker 2: at what's happening in Australia with tenure across a series

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Speaker 2: of big national data sets. So you know, we've we've

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Speaker 2: commissioned some data and then we use Australian Bureautistics and

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Speaker 2: the Australian Housing Conditions data sets.

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Speaker 1: Okay, rent camping should that come in?

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Speaker 2: You know when you ask, when you ask tenants, would

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Speaker 2: they be prepared to pay a little bit more for

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Speaker 2: different things? You know that this piece of work suggests that,

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Speaker 2: you know, giving tenants the security of reasonable rent rises

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Speaker 2: rather than excessive ones such as we saw in the

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Speaker 2: COVID pandemic, they'd be prepared to pay a little bit

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Speaker 2: more for that. So you know, tenants really value just

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Speaker 2: the ability to plan ahead where they're not going to

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Speaker 2: get big spikes in their rents, but generally that they

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Speaker 2: tend to be okay with reasonable rent rises.

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Speaker 1: What do you do though, as a landlord where rents

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Speaker 1: are going up. You see around you you might have

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Speaker 1: a good, long term, stable renter, and I suppose this

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Speaker 1: comes down to individual decisions ultimately. But you're aware of

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Speaker 1: rents increasing in the suburbs around you, and all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden you realize you could be earning one, maybe

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Speaker 1: two hundred dollars a week more for that property and

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Speaker 1: the rent is coming up. You don't want to lose

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Speaker 1: the tenant, but maybe they can't afford it. I mean,

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Speaker 1: individual decisions for people all over the place, of both

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Speaker 1: the renter and the landlord, but it's hard not to

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Speaker 1: follow suit.

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Speaker 2: I suppose they're kind of business decisions that landholds may

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Speaker 2: Can you know that sometimes sometimes the right decisions?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, all right, So this survey, Now what happens

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Speaker 1: with this? Do government's policy makers look at this and

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Speaker 1: make decisions accordingly? Is that what you're hopeful? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Look, I think this will get a fair bit of

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Speaker 2: policy attention, and it's mainly because you know, we all

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Speaker 2: think about the rental sector and the home ownership sector,

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Speaker 2: but we don't measure it all that often. So what

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Speaker 2: this gives is that there's a really good kind of

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Speaker 2: basis of you know, to show policymakers what's happening at

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Speaker 2: the moment. You know, what tenants want, what landlords want,

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Speaker 2: what trade offs people are prepared to make, and hopefully

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Speaker 2: that will kind of inform what is some very good

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Speaker 2: policy that's emerging now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the shortage of homes, I mean, not enough homes

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Speaker 1: for people to buy, not enough homes for people to rent.

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Speaker 1: That's a real crisis. And what we really need, obviously

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Speaker 1: is some infrastructure underway, and yes, government's working on that

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Speaker 1: and house and land packages available, but you know, generally

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Speaker 1: these days now a long way out of the city

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Speaker 1: mostly and what is nearer the city is obviously dearer anyway,

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Speaker 1: So we're expanding. You know, we don't want to expand necessarily,

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Speaker 1: but there's no other option for it. Here in Adelaide.

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Speaker 1: You'd be very well aware. Mount Barker a whole new

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Speaker 1: city up there, Aston Hills and other areas of it

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Speaker 1: that are being added on. Yet the infrastructure isn't right.

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Speaker 1: People clogging up the freeway trying to get to town.

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Speaker 1: Thy train buses, Yeah, they do their job, but again

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Speaker 1: accident on the freeway and away we go. In terms

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Speaker 1: of delays, the infrastructure around housing isn't right either. That's

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Speaker 1: got to be looked at as part of the whole

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Speaker 1: overall picture.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you've absolutely beautifully captured how complex it is

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Speaker 2: for government because you can't just say, oh, we'll build

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Speaker 2: another twenty thousand houses next year. You've got to have

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Speaker 2: a workforce trained, you've got to have an infrastructure there,

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Speaker 2: you've got to have the material. So you know, it's

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Speaker 2: kind of a huge problem for government at the moment.

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Speaker 2: And you know that the supply shortage wearing at the

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Speaker 2: moment is you know, it's not something that it just

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Speaker 2: appeared last year. It's been something in the making for

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Speaker 2: a couple of decades.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, all right, appreciate your time this morning, Emma.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, No, it's lovely to talk.

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Speaker 1: Professor Emma Baker, Australian Center for Housing Search, UNI of

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Speaker 1: Adelaide