Choice / Triple J - renters rights

J

Jay84

Driving home from work yesterday listening to triple J, and they have this current affairs half hour from 530-6pm. Yesterday they were talking about renters rights, and how in Australia - we have the lamest renters rights in the developed work- The podcast is here if you have 30 minutes of your life to waste http://www.abc dot net dot au/triplej/hack/podcast/
They were citing a study by choice "the people's watchdog" http://www.choice com dot au
Choice said renters in the Netherlands and Germany can stay indefinitely, there are government regulations in regards to rent increases, and how they were complaining about here we have to give a reason to evict someone.
On the show they had some dude from choice saying well you only get a one year lease then after that it's month by month... And the presenter chimed in how he has been moved on from various properties. Someone else called in saying I've been evicted after 8 years because I asked for a repair.
Wow, as if the laws aren't already in the tenants favour, having read many stories on here and also with Dazz re commercial, and my own experience of just 2 years with 1 tenant doing a runner and damaging my place they were a refugee impossible to track down and hold them accountable.
Anyway I thought i would share with everybody, and I tend to think this might have more effect on owners than possible negative gearing changes.
 
id hate to see their reaction if they did a "landlord's rights" segment,

they might have a heart attack and die and go off air for a bout 6 months
 
I've rented for the past 8 years due to moving cities and investing taking precedence.

In that time I have been accused of causing foundations to shift, been evicted for notifying the on that the house was sliding down a hill, pit up with a hole in the ceiling for 4 months and only found out that my rental was on the market for sale when I got a real estate website property update link at 11.30 the night before they planned to hold an inspection.

Things do work both ways.

You reckon most investors would want a tenant that has never missed a payment, gets a cleaner in, replaces filters in all extractor fans etc, pays for a gardener if applicable and generallyis very houseproud, but apparently not.
 
I love triple J's half hack hour. Listen to it daily. Unfortunately there are a lot of stories on there that make me cringe. Eg. Negative gearing is the devil. Foreign workers take all the jobs. I take drugs to be more spiritual.

The presenter tries to balance the arguments, sadly im guessing due to listeners demographic, discussion can be a little one sided.
 
I listen to Triple J all day and is the only station i listen too. But everyone knows (gross generalisatoin coming) the ABC is full of lefty labour/green voting communists. Hack is great but definately biased particularly on this issue.

It was great to see a few property managers on the show kept pointing out that it was the owners property so if they wanted it back after 1 year then that should be fine.

As for the lady moved out after 8 years, who know what the reason was. Maybe the owner has a relative they want to put into it, is that so wrong.

As with anything there will always be bad storys about owners and tenants.
 
Agree. I listen to JJJ, love it and love Hack. All of the news stories though are very much pro youth / left / evil landlords / etc.

Tenancy laws are definitely in favour of the renters. In QLD I have to give my tenants 4 weeks notice to move out, whereas they only need to give me 2 weeks.

The 'long leases in Europe' thing that seems to come up in these comparisons is always funny, I'd LOVE it if a tenant wanted to sign a 3 year lease! Most people under 30 can't even commit to going out for drinks on a Friday night until that Friday afternoon - do they really want longer leases?

I've always wondered if negative gearing is such a 'huge, unfair advantage' for investors, rather than complain about it, why not get involved into it? Provide for your future whilst helping provide accommodation for people using less taxpayers dollars than the government would?
 
MRO said:
everyone knows (gross generalisation coming) the ABC is full of lefty labour/green voting communists.
Click to expand...

Not quite - interesting survey just released and published on the front page of The Australian newspaper yesterday confirming only 15% of journalists at the ABC vote for the coalition.

The other 85% vote for Labor / Greens / independents.....anyone other than Liberal and / or National Party.

42% of ABC journalists vote for the Greens, over 4 times the national average. Statistically, that is a significant deviation from the general populace.

I found the data most interesting.
 
Jay84 said:
Choice said renters in the Netherlands and Germany can stay indefinitely,
Click to expand...

Ah - but what they fail to mention is that the tenant pays all the outgoings - has to do all the maintenance - and often the property comes with no fittings so the tenant has to even install their own kitchen, curtains, carpet etc before moving in.
 
lizzie said:
Ah - but what they fail to mention is that the tenant pays all the outgoings - has to do all the maintenance - and often the property comes with no fittings so the tenant has to even install their own kitchen, curtains, carpet etc before moving in.
Click to expand...

That's my understanding. More rights (foremost tenure), but with more responsibilities. I believe the yield is also typically better.

If my understanding is correct, it's no contest to which system is better.
 
Dazz said:
42% of ABC journalists vote for the Greens, over 4 times the national average. Statistically, that is a significant deviation from the general populace.
Click to expand...

Yes - very interesting. I suppose it's a contrast to the Murdoch owned press who do things like refuse to print Dick Smith's 'Forbidden Ideas' magazine - http://www.dicksmithfoods.com.au/dick-smith-secret (awesome read BTW, especially in light of the Ford layoffs) or run media campaigns by big business to shape public opinion.

Ideally we'd have a quality news source that's a balanced, 'middle of the road'.

Personally, to get well rounded/informed view on an issue I find myself having to read multiple news sources (including Russian and Chinese news on international issues).

lizzie said:
Ah - but what they fail to mention is that the tenant pays all the outgoings - has to do all the maintenance - and often the property comes with no fittings so the tenant has to even install their own kitchen, curtains, carpet etc before moving in.
Click to expand...

That's huge! I didn't know that.
 
lizzie said:
Ah - but what they fail to mention is that the tenant pays all the outgoings - has to do all the maintenance - and often the property comes with no fittings so the tenant has to even install their own kitchen, curtains, carpet etc before moving in.
Click to expand...

It's essentially a commercial lease. Long terms. Agreed rent increases. Tenant pays for fit out.

There are short term leases around, but aren't common at all.
 
lizzie said:
Ah - but what they fail to mention is that the tenant pays all the outgoings - has to do all the maintenance - and often the property comes with no fittings so the tenant has to even install their own kitchen, curtains, carpet etc before moving in.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I didn't have any idea it was like that and it just goes to show how misleading unchecked comments in the media can be.
 
Ideo said:
It's essentially a commercial lease. Long terms. Agreed rent increases. Tenant pays for fit out.

There are short term leases around, but aren't common at all.
Click to expand...

In Oz a residential lease exceeding 3 years can have whatever lease clauses you negotiate. If you enter a long term lease with the expectation of the tenant doing the fix out and maintenance, then expect a lower rental but commensurate with the market. It is also much harder to find a tenant prepared to fitout the premises than for one looking to move straight in without commitment to a longer lease.
 
Scott No Mates said:
In Oz a residential lease exceeding 3 years can have whatever lease clauses you negotiate. If you enter a long term lease with the expectation of the tenant doing the fix out and maintenance, then expect a lower rental but commensurate with the market. It is also much harder to find a tenant prepared to fitout the premises than for one looking to move straight in without commitment to a longer lease.
Click to expand...

You sure?????

Never heard of this.

Does that apply to WA? I would have thought not as not all state rules are the same.
 
Dazz said:
Not quite - interesting survey just released and published on the front page of The Australian newspaper yesterday confirming only 15% of journalists at the ABC vote for the coalition.

The other 85% vote for Labor / Greens / independents.....anyone other than Liberal and / or National Party.

42% of ABC journalists vote for the Greens, over 4 times the national average. Statistically, that is a significant deviation from the general populace.

I found the data most interesting.
Click to expand...

does the ABC hold any relevance any more? surely this could be the first thing chopped out of the budget. or just commercialise it and spin it off.
 
Ideo said:
It's essentially a commercial lease. Long terms. Agreed rent increases. Tenant pays for fit out.

There are short term leases around, but aren't common at all.
Click to expand...

Such leases seem to be a very good way for responsible tenants and owners to come together for mutual benefit.

From the tenant's point of view, s/he gets the home s/he wants and isn't paying for risk management necessarily focussed on itinerants who are not so concerned with caring for a property.

The owner who is genuinely in the business of providing rental accomodation and is not a speculator, can sleep at night happy with a reasonable return.

How to get the system going is the problem. The Aussie regulators, RTAs and tribunals have a strong welfare focus. But they conveniently overlook the additional costs of their policies for responsible tenants, and they disregard their own contributions to rendering rental accommodation unsustainable as a business.

We are some of the long term investors in rental housing who have been gradually selling of the farm so to speak because it delivers such poor returns and the risks, especially regulatory risks, continue to increase.
 
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