Rentals drifting out of reach for low-income earners

DISADVANTAGED renters are seeing housing costs taking greater shares of their household budgets and become increasingly unaffordable across the Geelong-Surf Coast region.

State housing agency Homes Victoria has released its latest rental report for the June quarter, which shows less than 1 in 10 rental listings across greater Geelong and 1 in 50 Surf Coast properties are considered affordable.

Homes Victoria defines affordable housing as “a broad term describing housing suitable for the needs of a range of low to moderate income households and priced so these households can meet their other essential living costs”.

Its benchmark for the rental report is for properties that cost no more than 30 per cent of gross income to rent for lower-income households, which is defined as people receiving Centrelink incomes.

During the reporting period, just seven properties across the Surf Coast Shire were affordable, or 1.9 per cent of the total rental market.

Surf Coast Shire hasn’t had more than 10 affordable properties available for any quarter since September 2020.

Geelong had just 146 affordable properties hit the market during the June quarter.

The 8.9 per cent share was the lowest proportion on record since the state government’s dataset began in March 2000.

The Geelong figure was 23 per cent in June 2020 and 12.4 per cent at the same time last year.

The new figures follow recent reports of skyrocketing prices in the region, when the Victorian government’s housing department found that Geelong, Surf Coast and Bellarine post codes were the most expensive to rent in across the state.