Darwin now the second most expensive Australian city to rent a home

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Darwin is now the second most expensive place to rent a home in Australia, trailing only Sydney. The latest data from domain, shows a 7-percent increase in rental prices over a year.  It's left lower income earners with nowhere to turn.

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00:00When Amanda and Mark moved to Darwin in December, they never imagined it would be so hard to

00:07find a place to call home.

00:09I probably applied for maybe 10 odd houses that I could afford, but everyone's trying

00:17to go for the cheap ones because no one can afford those expensive ones.

00:21It took them until February to land a rental in the rural suburb of Noonamah, unable to

00:26find anywhere affordable closer to town.

00:29I'd love to live closer to the city and be able to watch the beautiful sunsets, go to

00:32the Mindal markets every Thursday and Saturday.

00:35I'd love to get in and see those things in the city like I've been doing, but I can't

00:40because I can't really afford the petrol in because I'm having to pay what I'm paying

00:43in rent.

00:44Amanda works as a nurse and takes care of her husband, who's on a disability pension

00:49after surviving stage four brain cancer, but she's worried about what the future may hold.

00:55Like if this place goes up any higher in rent, then we will have to move on because we can't

00:58afford any more rent than $400 a week because we're not getting the income to be able to

01:03support that.

01:04Darwin is now tied second for the most expensive city to rent in, the average home costing

01:09$700 a week.

01:11Darwin also has one of the most competitive markets with a vacancy rate of 0.6%.

01:17There is a mismatch between demand and supply, which is why there is such a tight vacancy

01:23rate.

01:24When you have a vacancy rate below 2%, it shows that it is a landlord's market.

01:28Paired with the lack of social and affordable housing in Darwin, it's pushing more people

01:33into risk of homelessness.

01:35You look at the wait lists for public housing across the Northern Territory and they can

01:39be anywhere from about four to ten years, which is an incredibly long time for people

01:44to be waiting for housing and there's over 5,000 families or applicants on those wait

01:50lists at the moment.

01:51But there's a chance things could eventually turn.

01:54One of the positive aspects is we've started to see an increase of investment activity

01:58over the recent quarter and what that will eventually do is hopefully translate into

02:04higher levels of rental stock.

02:06Uncertainty in an unstable market.

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