affordability – Michmutters

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Australia

Rental stress hits families in Toowoomba with $15 standing between home and homelessness

A woman with long brown hair and a navy hoodie stands in front of her brick home

Fifteen dollars might be spare change to some but, for those trying to contend with feeding a family and grappling with rising costs of living it is a rent rise few can afford.

According to a new survey from Data Finance Analytics Toowoomba, southern Queensland has one of the highest rates of mortgage and rent stress in the country.

The survey of 47,000 people across Australia found 61 per cent of renters were under rental stress, while in Toowoomba 57 per cent of the 240 respondents experienced rental stress.

Lyndal Hood is one of them. She and her husband’s rent has recently risen by $15 a week.

“Our rent went up from $230 to $245 when we got our new lease,” she said.

Ms Hood’s husband works in retail, and she worked in hospitality until forced to take a break after a heart attack late last year.

major sacrifice

Ms Hood said while it may seem like a small amount, it quickly added up.

“That extra $30 to [fortnight]that’s the price of my medications,” she said.

“That means no extra money left over, and it’s not like we’re bludgers.

“If it went up further, we’d have to leave because we can barely cope with what we’ve got.”

Welcome to Toowoomba sign surrounded by flowers
Toowoomba has been known as Australia’s Garden City since the 1940s.(ABC Southern Qld: Peter Gunders)

Ms Hood said she had no choice but to stay in her property and pay the extra amount.

“I feel like we’re just stuck,” she said.

“We look around town at what else is out there and it’s no better than this place. The house across the road is $360 a week and it’s a dive.”

Darling Downs and South West REIQ president Daniel Burrett said rent rises were generally the landlord’s reaction to increasing interest rates.

“Rents are continuing to go up,” he said.

“The average rent price in Toowoomba is in the early $400s. It used to be around the $330 to $340 mark.”

statewide surge

Statewide it is no secret that rent is also surging, particularly in high-growth areas.

According to the Everybody’s Home campaign that coincides with Homelessness Week this week, the average rent on the Gold Coast rose by over 15 per cent in the past three years.

Everybody’s Home spokesperson Kate Colvin said the data proved how many people were at risk of homelessness.

“We know that rental stress is the gateway to homelessness,” she said.

“When you combine surging rents with flat wages you put people in a financial vice and for the past three years that vice has been tightening.”

Ms Colvin said it would not just affect low to middle-income earners and was “a handbrake on the economy right through regional Australia”.

“You have situations where in tourism locations restaurants can’t open every day of the week because they can’t get the staff, or aged care services around the country where they simply can’t get the staff to operate at full capacity,” she said.

“A part of the reason for that is because people won’t move to an area to take up work if they can’t find a house or a property in the rental market.

“In terms of our economic health, particularly in regional Australia, housing is an important part of the picture.”

never been worse

Data Finance Analytics principal Martin Short said he had never seen it as bad.

“Unfortunately, both rental stress and mortgage stress seem to rise and the pressure on households is really stressful and growing,” he said.

“I’ve never seen it so high with almost half of households with a rent obligation finding it really difficult to service it.

“It’s the worst in the high-growth corridors, the areas of the country that have been on a lot of new developments.”

Lowset brick house with For Rent sign out front.
Housing advocate Everybody’s Home says surging rents with flat wages have put people in a “financial vice”.(ABC News: Lucy Robinson)

Rents rose by 12.1 per cent on the Sunshine Coast to an average of $641 per week and 9.4 per cent or $426.21 per week in Cairns.

Ms Colvin said the solution was in social housing.

“Obviously, building social housing would deliver rental properties, but rental properties that are targeted to low-income households who are the ones who are being most squeezed out of the rental market,” she said.

Ms Colvin said this would then free up rentals for people in other income brackets.

“So, it’s a really great solution that really fits the problem,” she said.

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Business

Home prices in ‘affordable’ regional Queensland towns continue to rise as national housing market drops

Man and woman smiling in front of their weatherboard home painted blue and cream, near a tree.

A 25-year-old buying a two-storey house with a picturesque garden for just over $300,000 harks back to the early 1990s.

But in outback Queensland towns such as Longreach, it’s the norm.

The Reserve Bank of Australia yesterday raised interest rates for the fourth consecutive month, but Longreach resident Ben Galea said he was not stressed.

“When it comes time for my fixed interest rate to change … I don’t have to change my lifestyle,” Mr Galea said.

“It’s a great town. It’s buzzing. There are a lot of young people here. There are lots to do, lots of sports. It’s brilliant.

“There are things that we don’t have out here. It costs money to fly back to the coast. You don’t see family as often. These are the things you give up.”

As interest rates rise, home values ​​in Australia are dropping at their fastest pace since the global financial crisis, with the latest data showing that the nation’s median property value has dropped by 2 per cent since the beginning of May, to $747,182.

Lush green backyard with smoke rising from a pizza oven.
Mr Galea purchased his home last year for $310,000 at a “beautiful” fixed rate of 1.9 per cent.(Supplied)

But parts of regional Queensland are tipped to be more insulated from price drops than cities, and some regions have continued to see property prices increase in the last month.

Regional Australia Institute chief executive Liz Ritchie said it was mostly due to housing affordability in the regions.

“What we won’t see is the markets in regional Australia and regional Queensland fall as sharply,” she said.

“In the past couple of years, regions have seen significant price growth… but this is off years of just having steady incremental growth.

“The shocks that we’re seeing with interest rate hikes just won’t be felt in the same way, particularly in Queensland’s more rural and remote communities.”

Regional buyers ‘not overly worried’

Toowoomba-based Heritage Bank’s chief operating officer Dan Dredge said recent hikes to interest rates had not affected the number of people applying for home loans in regional Queensland through his bank.

Young man lighting a fire with a circle of friends.
Mr Galea says he loves the lifestyle and community in western Queensland.(ABC Western Qld: Victoria Pengilley)

“We’re not seeing people being overly worried about interest rate rises,” Mr Dredge said.

“What we’re seeing is people budgeting and setting their expectations on higher interest rates, moving forward.”

Data from CoreLogic found dwelling values ​​in regional Queensland fell by 0.8 per cent in July, compared to larger falls of 2.2 per cent in Sydney and 1.5 per cent in Melbourne.

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Categories
Australia

Cost of living pressures lead to food insecurity and fears of chronic health conditions

Cost of living pressures lead to food insecurity and fears of chronic health conditions

More Australians are now experiencing mild to moderate food insecurity due to the cost and unavailability of fruit and vegetables leading to ill health and pressures on charities, experts warn.

The skyrocketing cost of living has been particularly difficult for mum of three Jane Winters.

Her family of five, who live in Redcliffe, north of Brisbane, have seen their weekly grocery bill more than double from between $100 and $150 to nearly $300.

“We are going standard, home brand, whatever we can just to try and save some money because it’s a bit ridiculous,” she said.

A grocery list that was once full of fresh produce and healthy ingredients has now been replaced with cheaper alternatives and processed food.

“Fast food is fast becoming cheaper than healthy food which is awful,” Ms Winter said.

“It’s going to become a really big problem and I think childhood obesity is going to get so much bigger because of that.”

‘Unable to send kids to school with lunch’

Melissa Peters works in an affordable food shop west of Brisbane known as Restore, run by a not-for-profit organization Ipswich Assist.

Melissa smiles with glasses on.
Melissa Peters says the number of shoppers in Ipswich Assist’s charity grocery store has tripled, some of whom are from middle class backgrounds.(ABC News: Baz Ruddick)

She said the charity has seen a marked increase in families, some on dual incomes, seeking help to feed their families.

“Prior to this increase in the cost of living, we were seeing around maybe 30 to 40 people come through each week and now we’re cracking upwards of 100 people, 100 families coming through each week,” Ms Peters said.

“People tell us that they’re no longer able to afford just basic groceries, fruit and veggies, they’re unable to send their kids to school with lunches because the cost of living is just getting higher and higher each week.”

Cans of baked beans at the Ipswich Assist Restore charity grocery store
Cans of baked beans at Ipswich Assist’s charity grocery store.(ABC News: Baz Ruddick)

The store receives food from OzHarvest and Foodbank, as well as donations from mainstream supermarkets, with all items sold for $1 each.

“We’re seeing more and more families come through that have never needed to seek assistance before because they’ve never experienced any sort of financial hardship or crisis in the past,” she said.

“It’s a sense of vulnerability that they don’t want to have to show to the world… [but] we often remind them that seeking assistance is not weak.”

‘A big domino effect’

With the rising cost of food, fuel and rent showing no sign of abating, Ms Peters said the situation was only expected to worsen.

“At what point does it end? At what point does something happen that stops it from affecting every day Aussies?” she said.

“If people dig themselves into debt and get more and more into financial crisis, they have to then rely on more and more places to provide assistance.

“And those assistance places don’t have enough funding and it just becomes this big domino effect on people not being able to support themselves.”

Pru smiles next to a rack of clothes.
Pru Burke’s second-hand clothing store now features a free community pantry.(ABC News: Baz Ruddick)

Redcliffe woman Pru Burke has also opened a free community pantry with stacks of free, donated pantry items destined for Queenslanders doing it tough.

“I see the mums every day come and tell me their stories and it is heartbreaking,” she said.

“It’s those small drops in the ocean that are going to save them a lot more money in the end.

“If you’ve got the ability, try doing something like this. Open a food pantry, talk to members of your community and find ways to help each other.”

Fears of rising obesity, chronic illness

Dr Ward sits in a hospital ward looking stern.
Food security expert Dr Aletha Ward says there is a clear link between nutrient deficient diets and chronic disease.

University of Southern Queensland food security expert Aletha Ward said Australia was now experiencing mild to moderate food insecurity due to a lack of fruit and vegetable consumption.

“The problem with mild to moderate food insecurity is that it drives obesity, so we are having food, it is just not the right type of food,” Dr Ward said.

“Most families would not purchase an iceberg lettuce for $10.”

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