And 1million Australian properties are vacant? Could tell stories involving
investment properties and VISA rorting that would make your hair curl!
Melbourne rents: $150 a bed ads raise concerns of overcrowding and exploitation
Christina Zhoutwitter Jul 23, 2017
Online advertisements are blatantly asking tenants to pay $150 a week to squeeze into a two-bedroom city apartment with seven others. A profiteering operator could potentially pocket $1200 a week from a set up like this – triple Melbourne’s median unit rent. The exorbitant asking price for a bed, typically in a shared furnished room, raises concerns about overcrowding and exploitation of international students. Despite a Fairfax Media investigation into illegal high-rise rooming houses two years ago, many properties with rooms occupied by up to four people continue to fly under the radar of regulators.
Source: Gumtree
Experts are calling for the state and local governments to ramp up their efforts to police and identify illegal rooming houses. Tenants Union of Victoria chief executive Mark O’Brien said some landlords saw leasing their properties room by room as a “money-making opportunity”. “When you look at places like Gumtree, we routinely see advertisements for what we know are rooming houses, or seem to be rooming houses,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any trigger for anybody in state or local government to investigate whether they’re registered, and … whether or not the operator is a licensed operator.”
Photo: Gumtree
Cooperation between the two tiers of government was required, Mr O’Brien said, adding that he believed the problem stemmed from insufficient resources to support proactive investigations.
· Related: Sydney’s slumlord solution: Big Data crackdown
· Related: Melbourne’s illegal high-rise rooming houses
· Related: Inspecting an illegal rooming house
“Our view is that it’s not difficult to determine if it’s a rooming house, and council should be able to do that,” he said. “Surely it would be as simple as the council just contacting the ratepayer and [saying] ‘We saw this advertisement, do you realise it appears you’re operating a rooming house? We want to meet you at the premise to have a look at what you’re doing.’ I don’t see it as being that complicated.”
A City of Melbourne spokeswoman said the council investigated 40 unregistered rooming house complaints so far this year. They said they also monitor digital platforms such as Facebook and Gumtree. “These investigations have resulted in various actions, including requiring the premises to cease operating and requiring the number of people accommodated be reduced due to insufficient space,” she said. “It can be difficult to determine through an advertisement whether the accommodation requires registration as a rooming house because most share houses will be exempt.” The spokeswoman said, based on the information in the advertisement below, the apartment appeared to be a share house rather than a rooming house.