Bobby. wrote on May 21
st, 2026 at 10:27pm:
I blame Albo for his mass immigration.
200 Melbourne Renters FIGHT for ONE Home — The Footage is DEVASTATINGMay 21, 2026
A Melbourne couple offered to pay $27,560 cash upfront. 12 months rent, guaranteed and still got rejected. Six weeks later, the same property relisted at a lower price. That's not fiction.
That's a real, dated, verified post on r/AusPropertyChat. And mate, it gets worse from there.
74 people registered for one inspection in September 2024, giving each applicant a 1.35% chance of getting it. By May 2026, a Victorian property professional posted Instagram footage confirming queues of 100 to 200 applicants per property.
The maths doesn't maths, mate.
Victoria lost 24,716 active rental bonds in a single year — the first decline since records started in 1999. Australian rents climbed 43.9% in five years while wages grew just 17.5%. And you now need a $112,667 salary just to rent a median capital city home without entering stress. Anglicare confirmed 99% of all private rentals are unaffordable on minimum wage.
Yeah, nah... This is absolutely cooked.
And here's the gut punch. Prosper Australia confirmed 31,890 Melbourne homes had zero water use for an entire year. While 24,000 people are homeless and 66,000 sit on the social housing waitlist.
Meanwhile Canada's rental vacancy hit 3.1% in 2025 — they built their way out. Melbourne taxed its way deeper in. Same hemisphere. Completely different planet.
So, I knew it was a problem for at least 2-3 years!
Where hubby works are a lot of gen in their 20s, and constantly I’ve heard the problems trying to get rental! And one young 24 year old with a couple other mates, found a rental unit over $700 so they share rent as it’s too much for just one.
Yesterday, hubby came back telling me another 21 year old guy in the workshop, finally got a rental unit and he says to hubby “Guess how long this unit was empty for!”
Hubby replies “I dunno, 5 years?”
The guy answers “Seventeen years! Owned by Chinese whom used to come to stay over from China 2 weeks a year!”
And I thought, oh yes, that new exorbitant empty house tax that slugs foreign owners more so!
And about 15-20 years ago when hubby worked with a guy, for a cement company in port Melbourne, they both drove in together, early morning. It was pointed out, all those high rise apartments always dark, because they were empty.
Whether it was foreign owned or just bad investments that no one wanted, who really knows except the tax dept!
I see a lot of rental properties being sold as landlords get out of rental market, so these are being snapped up quick by couples buying as a home.
I’m astounded how quick properties are selling!
Real estate agents must be making a bonza!
So these are ex rentals off the rental market, narrowing the margin of rentals available.
We have one rental property left, up in the northern Gold Coast, we want to keep it as such because we can’t get a pension, so this is our safety net.
But it’s tempting to sell because, it’s now worth over $1 million!
And I can get 5% = $50,000 per annum!
Rather than $36,000 rental minus rates, insurance, repairs, agent fees etc.
So I’m kind of confused what to do next.
I waited to hear about the budget but it won’t affect us that much. Otherwise I would’ve stuck it on the market pronto!
What worries me, is interest rates could plummet like they did not that long ago, so any money on term deposit earns sfa.
Hence why we hadn’t sold the place to now.
So this is another reason why rentals are being sold.
As interest rates take hikes, it’s better money making on term deposit rather than renting.
It’s a maths game!
Just wanted to share my thinking on it all so it’s better understood why the housing market moves or not moves the way it does.
I will re-evaluate by this time next year which way to go with this. I have an inkling, wstching the growth rate, that it could be worth between $1.1 and $1.2 million by this time next year.
What’s the inkling about interest rates? I bet it goes up again!
Watch this space!
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