Heat is on Australian rental markets as would-be buyers opt out
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Heat is on Australian rental markets as would-be buyers opt out

New data reveals rents are accounting for greater percentages of household incomes

By KANEBRIDGE NEWS
Mon, May 29, 2023 12:52pmGrey Clock 2 min

Pressure on Australia’s rental market continues to mount, with rental affordability at its highest level in almost a decade, new research has found.

The ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report has revealed that rent now accounts for almost a third of household income for a median income household, the highest level since June 2014. The situation for lower income households is even more stressed with those at the 25th percentile income level spending 51.6 percent of their earnings on rent.

Sydney topped the list of least affordable places in the country with on average 51.6 percent of income going to service a new mortgage, while it would take 12 years to save for a 20 percent deposit. The result is more would-be homebuyers are being pushed out of the housing market and into rentals.

The report also found that rental vacancy rates are at 1.1 percent nationally, down from a decade average of 3 percent.

CoreLogic Australia head of research Eliza Owen said there was no relief in sight for renters anytime soon as the construction industry felt the impact of interest rate rises.

“As rents have risen sharply, the increase in the cash rate, and pressures in the construction sector have slowed the rate of dwelling completions. This has meant investor conditions are not ideal, and has stemmed the flow of new rental properties to the market,” Ms Owen said. 

“Through February and March ABS lending data has shown signs of an increase in investment borrowing, but it will take some time for a supply response to ease pressures in the rental market.” 

ANZ senior economist Felicity Emmett said uncertain conditions had also impacted on the amount of existing housing stock going to market.

“Heightened economic uncertainty has seen a decline in sales volumes in the private market and an increase in those seeking rental accommodation. Paired with a decline in social housing, rental demand pressures are being felt in all income brackets,” Ms Emmett said. 



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Kit Braden, an executive at French beauty empire L’Occitane, has spent every winter for the past 13 years at the stone vacation home.

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A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.

The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.

“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”

The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.

It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.

In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.

“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.

The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.

“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.

He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.

The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.

“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.

His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.

“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.

When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.

They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.

The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.

For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.

“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”

As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.

“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”

Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.

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