By LAUREN HARRISS
Accommodation, not study, has become a primary concern for many students enrolled in Canberra’s universities and higher learning institutes. Students are being driven away by a highly competitive rental market.
The president of the ANU Students’ Association, Tully Fletcher, said the rental market was the most difficult they had ever experienced.
“Rental properties available to students are in short supply,” he said. “A lot of time and an increasing high level of finance security are needed to obtain accommodation, something that many students do not have.”
Canberra has long appealed to the nation’s student population for its lower cost of living. However, although the Australian Bureau of Statistics cites the median rent as $410-$480 a week which is comparatively low against the nation’s other cities, competition is becoming increasingly cut-throat.
The market is operating at less than a one percent vacancy and real estate agents warn it is only going to get worse. Demand for properties exceeds supply and landlords seem to be able to cite almost any criteria for prospective tenants to meet.
More properties are being denied to share housing, further narrowing the market for students. One Belconnen based real estate agent said her agency advertised their rental properties as “no groups” by default. “We find that more people want to eliminate the possibility of renting to groups, particularly student groups, and in this market it is possible to remove such a key group of renters and still not suffer any lack of interest in a property”.
Tully Fletcher says more needs to be done.
“Many students need to form groups to be able to afford rent,” he said. “We can understand that landlords need to feel secure about their tenants, but eliminating groups altogether is a bit narrow minded. Really it all comes down to the fact that the federal government needs to do more to subsidise affordable housing, particularly for students.”
