As Australia’s housing crisis worsens, a New South Wales council has urged thousands of holiday home owners to rent out their unoccupied properties.
Around 8,000 homes in the Eurobdalla Shire Council, which extends along the state’s south coast, are vacant for the majority of the year since their owners live elsewhere.
Meanwhile, surrounding campgrounds are teeming with Australians who are homeless due to a lack of cheap rental housing in the area.
Mayor Mathew Hatcher is now pleading with non-resident ratepayers – 7,500 of whom live permanently in Sydney and Canberra – to lease out their second houses for one to two years.
While acknowledging that many Canberrans have summer vacations in the shire, which extends from South Durras to past Tilba Tilba, and that the struggling area needs their tourism revenue, he said resolving the housing issue is of utmost importance.
‘This is a social disaster of epic proportions. It’s a pitch for dignity and humanity,’ he told ABC News.
‘We can’t wait years for homes to be built. We need to address the lack of rental properties in our community right now.’
Cr Hatcher has written a letter to the home owners, who include 4000 Sydney people, 3500 Canberra residents, 380 Victorians, and hundreds more from interstate or overseas.
Following the Black Sumer Bushfires in 2020, which destroyed 500 residences in the council area, a similar petition was made, resulting in the rental of more than 80 holiday homes.
Cr Hatcher stated that if people could replicate their kindness, it would considerably improve the situation.
Mr Hatcher stated that he does not want to introduce restrictions limiting the amount of days residences can be leased for short-term stays, as is being sought in Byron Bay, because the council wants to stimulate tourism.
He claimed that trying to strike a balance between housing locals and also accommodating tourists, who are crucial to the economy, had put officials in a “sticky spot.”
However, he claimed that due to the scarcity of suitable properties, some businesses are even having trouble recruiting employees to relocate there.
‘I’m hoping this letter will bring about enough supply so that we don’t have to go to the next level,’ he said.
The cry for help comes as more than 50 people, who are looking for housing, brave the winter cold in tents and RVs at a campground close to Moruya.
Since there aren’t many rental properties available, Moruya real estate agent Samantha Sheather suggested that landlords who typically rent out their vacation homes for short-term stays should consider finding long-term tenants instead.
However, she claimed that a lot of prospective landlords were wary because of laws implemented in the wake of the pandemic that make it more challenging to remove tenants who are unable to pay their rent.
According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data, there are 577,000 unoccupied residential homes nationwide, making this the greatest rental crisis in country history.
Michael Matusik, a property expert, thinks new tax laws should be implemented to “incentivize or penalize” owners into making their properties available for rental.
‘Around 29 per cent of investment properties are not rented out. They are sitting there vacant,’ Mr Matusik told the Courier Mail.