Reluctant regulators? Rent regulation in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Rents in the Australian private rental sector (PRS) have long been determined by the market, but during the public health and economic crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, state and territory governments implemented emergency measures to prevent evictions and regulate rents. This article reviews the rent measures implemented and their outcomes, using survey data and other quantitative evidence, and interviews with PRS stakeholders. We find the rent measures, which relied on negotiations between individual landlords and tenants, had a modest effect -just 8-16% of tenants got a rent variation -and tenants, landlords and agents struggled in unfamiliar roles. The emergency period holds lessons and prompts questions about future directions in policy-making for rental affordability and PRS relations.

Australia’s COVID-19 pandemic housing policy responses

“…Landlord survey respondents indicated a significant degree of tenancy movement in the pandemic, with 23 per cent saying a tenant had terminated a tenancy during the emergency period. This is somewhat higher than the 19 per cent of tenant survey respondents who said they had moved (Martin, Sisson et al 2021). Moreover, 17 per cent of landlord respondents said they had terminated a tenancy during the emergency (well above the 4% of tenant respondents who said they had moved at the instigation of their landlord in Martin, Sisson et al 2021), reflecting the incompleteness of the eviction moratoriums.…”

“…Martin, Sisson et al conclude that rent variations played a 'modest, even weak' role in responding to the pandemic income shock, and that the Australian Government's income support programs-the JobSeeker Coronavirus Supplement, and JobKeeper-did much more to absorb the shock. Source: Pawson, Martin et al 2021a;Martin, Sisson et al 2021. This conclusion is further supported by data relating to rent relief scheme expenditures. Table 8 is from Pawson, Martin et al (2021b), and summarises the available data about estimated and actual expenditures under the 2020 rent relief schemes.…”

“…As Martin, Sisson et al (2021) observe, it appears a small minority of tenants (8-16%, depending on the data source) negotiated a rent variation during the 2020 emergency period. The City Futures survey suggests more tenants were discouraged from requesting a variation, and more tenants moved out, than actually negotiated a variation.…”

“…A May 2020 survey by ANU found 1 per cent of tenants reported being evicted in the previous three months (Biddle, Edwards et al 2020). A July 2020 survey published by AHURI found 3 per cent of tenants had been evicted or moved at the request of their landlord ; and a survey conducted August-October 2020 by UNSW City Futures Research Centre, found 4 per cent of tenants had been evicted or moved at the request of their landlord (Pawson, Martin et al 2021a;Martin, Sisson et al 2021).…”

“…Several studies have examined the effect of the rent negotiations that governments encouraged early in the emergency period. Table 7, from Pawson, Martin et al (2021a) and Martin, Sisson et al (2021) summarises the available evidence from the surveys by City Futures, ANU (Biddle, Edwards et al 2020), AHURI , tenants advocacy group Better Renting (Dignam 2020) and the ABS (ABS 2020a; 2020b); the RBA's analysis of data provided by the rent payments platform, MRI (Evans, Rosewall et al 2020); and data about rent variation agreements collected by the state governments of NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.…”