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Rising rents have forced South Yarra renter Cat Dunn to give up her dream of living in the inner city and move in with her boyfriend early.
“This is my first time living alone and I love it,” said the 38-year-old online business manager. “We both wanted to live alone, but we couldn’t. We were forced to take the next step in our relationship when we weren’t ready.”
Dunn believes it is unfair to raise rents without making improvements to the property. Credit: Justin McManus
“It would be nice if I had that option when I was ready, rather than when my lease was about to expire.”
Dunn’s boyfriend lives in Bonbeach, 31 kilometres from Melbourne’s central business district, where the median rent for a house is $650 and the median rent for a unit is $498, both up more than 30 per cent in the past five years.
Dunn has lived in her South Yarra apartment for two years and her landlord has raised her rent by about $350 a month. She feels the apartment has become less comfortable because of increasing noise from nearby construction and slow processing of maintenance requests.
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“It’s an old art deco house. It was run down and the rent seemed reasonable,” she said. “South Yarra is a very desirable area but the conditions I had to put up with to live here were terrible.
“I was getting less and less value out of it, and it was really hard. I felt like I was being taken advantage of.”
Simon Kuestenmacher, co-founder of the Demographics Group, said people should be able to live alone in a home and location that suits them.
“You’re going to make decisions more and more based on price rather than personal circumstances. For a lot of people, co-living arrangements are pretty good,” he said. “Sometimes people just get turned off by it, not everyone wants it — and our pricing keeps people out of those options.”
Kuestenmacher said rents could be reduced by: Add more rental inventoryAnd we hope that the government will encourage more development projects with the purpose of building for rent.
“It’s always cheaper to share with a roommate, but just because prices have gone up overall, more and more people can’t afford it,” he said. “What’s worse is people living in a one-bedroom apartment and paying 45 per cent of their income for it.
“You’re stuck in a rut… You feel like you’ve been cheated and you’ve lost a good life, and that makes you angry. And that threatens democracy to a certain extent.”
Joel Dignam, executive director of Better Rent, said living alone has become more difficult.
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“Life is getting tougher for people,” he said. “Four years ago, renters had a bit of breathing room, but since then it’s gotten worse.”
Mr Dignam said rising rents were affecting the wellbeing of single renters. “We often hear about people who are struggling,” he said. “Sometimes the owners of these properties realise this and feel No obligation to take legal action.
“Some renters think, ‘I have to stay where I am because wherever I go it’s probably going to be worse or more expensive’.”
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