Australia's Property Market Is Cooked | Aussies Could Go Homeless

[00:00:00]Too many young people can't get a house.

[00:00:02]So, I'm chairing a national inquiry looking for answers. Here's what we learned on day one.

[00:00:07]>> The Australian housing market is screwed. We know this.

[00:00:12]>> Perth's median house price just hit $1 million in the past week or so.

[00:00:17]>> The property market right now feels like a boxer leaning against the ropes. It's >> So, some more bad news for homeowners, renters, and landlords. See, I recently set up Google alerts for Australian property. This week's results were absolutely horrifying. And uh I'll go through a couple with you now. 227 federal politicians, 510 properties between them, an average of 2.25 investment properties per MP in a country where 1 in three Australians cannot afford to buy a home, and 169,000 households are sitting on a public housing waiting list. The prime minister owns three. The former opposition leader owns five. One Labour minister owns six.

[00:01:01]A Liberal MP owns seven. These are the exact people who vote on housing policy, who decide which tax breaks survive and which ones die, who determine whether the system that is crushing you gets reformed or protected. And every year they tinker at the edges, announce a review, set an implementation date 2 years away, and call it action. This is not a failure of government. This is government working exactly as designed for exactly the people who designed it.

[00:01:30]Today I am breaking down the full machinery of Australia's property wrought. The tax loopholes that reward speculation, the agent tricks that extract money from desperate renters, the billiondoll government subsidies flowing to people who already own multiple homes and the reason none of it gets fixed. By the end of this, you will understand that Australia's housing crisis is not an accident. It is a business model. and you are the product.

[00:01:55]>> Too many young people can't get a house.

[00:01:58]So, I'm chairing a national inquiry looking for answers. Here's what we learned on day one.

[00:02:03]>> Population has increased by 16% while the number of homes has increased by more than that at 19%.

[00:02:10]>> Despite what Pauline says, the data say that immigration is not the problem.

[00:02:15]>> Unfortunately though, the debate in recent time has suggested the problem with supply is one of population growth and migration. This has been so particularly vile, not least because it gives comfort to some of the worst groups in society who seek to stoke racism and xenophobia for political ends, but also because it is false.

[00:02:35]>> Australia used to build heaps of public housing, but we've vacated the field now.

[00:02:40]>> Right up until the early ' 80s, one in three renters was renting from the government. And that was not just people at the margins. It was also people like teachers and construction workers and public servants. And that was a really big part of why housing um was affordable.

[00:02:53]>> For a country that invented Wi-Fi, we're pretty bad at using it.

[00:02:58]>> You there, Mr. Langford?

[00:03:03]>> And we heard that governments can actually help renters if they want to.

[00:03:08]>> We need to limit rent increases. I'm surprised that there hasn't been um more discussion about that in the past um couple of months because we've seen the property industry really come out and say that you know the tax changes are going to you know are going to increase rents. Um there is actually a way to stop that from happening. Governments can can limit rent increases. um that's been done here in the ACT um where um rent increases are limited to um 10% over CPI and we've seen um rent growth really slow in the ACT compared to other parts of the country.

[00:03:41]>> Sorry kids, I should have put a content warning right at the beginning.

[00:03:47]>> The Australian housing market is screwed. We know this. It doesn't matter if you're trying to buy or rent. There's nothing to buy or nothing to rent. I'm going to show you exactly why the property market is so out of reach for the everyday Aussie with the help of some sweet treats.

[00:04:05]Let's dive in. Let me introduce you to your country. Don't mind this. I'm nowhere near as fancy as most creators.

[00:04:12]We've got government housing, your homeowners, your renters. Over here, immigration waiting to come in. These are our snakes of the market, our government, and our builders. Let's go back to the '90s where everything just worked. Here's why it worked. Notice all the vacant homes. We got more homes than people. Now, government housing is an important factor here. It existed. So, when people couldn't afford to live in their homes anymore, they were granted government housing, right? Homeowners would buy and sell. They sell this one.

[00:04:46]They move to that one. This one here is now vacant. A renter moves in. This one here is now vacant. this existing homeowner, he wants to buy it as an investment, but he leaves it in the rental pool so that people, Australians, can continue to rent. All right, this guy here, he also buys a rental, but he still wants to keep renting. So, he's renting, but he also owns a rental.

[00:05:14]And that's okay. more people move in and so we stay in balance.

[00:05:21]Building new homes. So freckles, they're our existing homes because they've got some character to them. These plain little chocolate buttons, they're our new homes. No character and a little small. Beside the point, this guy decides, you know what? I actually want to build a home. So he comes over to the government. He says, hi government, I want to build a house.

[00:05:43]Government says that will be $500. Come back in 2 weeks and I'll give you your approval to start building. Okay. He goes back home 2 weeks later. Do I have my approval? You sure do. He asked the builder to come and build the house. 6 months later, he moves in.

[00:05:59]And this guy here, immigrant, he moves into the rental.

[00:06:06]This is a little bit deceiving. We didn't have immigrants in our housing then. So, let's fix that up. He can go to a rental. And so the cycle still is fine. Let's build some homes. Fast forward a few years, right? So we're going to fast forward till now.

[00:06:25]We got some people, right? What happens?

[00:06:29]Governments stop building extra housing.

[00:06:31]So government housing that's full.

[00:06:36]Everything Oops. Everything is now full.

[00:06:42]Oh yeah, that is hair. You can disgusting me. That's gross. They're my lollies.

[00:06:49]All right, let's fill up these homes.

[00:06:51]Homes are full. Homes are full.

[00:06:55]There's no homes. I want to build a home. Okay. Hi, Mr. Government. I want to build a house. That'll be $120,000, please. And come and see me in 6 months time for your approval. What do you mean $120,000?

[00:07:09]Oh, yes. Well, you know, now we've got things like uh planning fees and we've got to have infrastructure charges and we've got to do all these surveys and you know, there's environmental things.

[00:07:19]Well, why 6 months? Because it just takes time. Yeah, screw that. I don't have 6 months. I'm not buying a house.

[00:07:26]Building a house. I'm not building a house. So, instead, we're bringing in more people. We're building at a slower rate than people are coming in. And then and then this cool concept gets introduced. You might know it. It's called Airbnb.

[00:07:49]So then we start buying houses, putting them in Airbnbs.

[00:07:56]Did you notice that when we just had investors, we still kept people in the homes. The homes didn't come out of the system. Now, with the introduction of Airbnb, the homes are out of the system.

[00:08:09]Let's build a few more cuz you know the snakes. The snakes. Let's come and look at the snakes. The snake snakes are still building.

[00:08:19]You might know of these guys as Murvac, Stockland, Lenace.

[00:08:26]They ate they ate your little builder, which in turn made these homes ultimately more expensive. They were cheaper in the beginning because I'm big and I can build it cheaper, hence eating your local guy. But ultimately, it's made these even more expensive.

[00:08:44]And I'm going to call it China purely because China is most of our foreign investment.

[00:08:53]Chinese come in in this foreign investment.

[00:08:59]They buy the homes. These are the homes that sit vacant. It's not the mom and dad investor that has the home sitting vacant cuz they can't damn well afford the mortgage if the home is vacant. So, we've done that.

[00:09:14]More people come in. More people. More people. And before you know it, we have more people than houses.

[00:09:21]Do you want to know who this snake is?

[00:09:23]because the building industry is apparently booming. Although we don't have enough trades, we don't have enough people building the homes. And now it costs up to 100 times more to build a home just in fees. And instead of taking 6 months to build the home, it takes 18 months on average to build the house.

[00:09:44]This guy here though, this is James Hardy. You might have heard of him, right? an Australianfounded company since the 1800s. Well, he moved his corporation over to Ireland and the US.

[00:10:00]Guess how much income tax he's paid in Australia since 2006.

[00:10:05]Guess guess zero. Zero. He's earned approximately 11 billion dollars from these builders, these homes that we're paying for that. These guys are getting fat. This guy's getting fat. He's getting fat. And we're all out here fighting, lining up by the truckload, fighting for our lives to get into a home.

[00:10:35]>> So, what's the problem? Immigration.

[00:10:41]building being expensive, being out of reach, snakes, and importantly, the government who makes it so damn freaking hard to build a house. And they tell you, I shouldn't have eaten the immigrants.

[00:11:09]They tell you that these new tax reforms will help. That getting rid of capital gains tax for investors and pushing them into new builds will help. New builds are expensive.

[00:11:22]They've done nothing to address the affordability of a new home. Developers don't want to build them. Why do you think it was a problem? Mom and dad investors don't want to build. It's too expensive. It's too hard.

[00:11:33]Your average first homeowner doesn't want to build. Too expensive, too hard.

[00:11:38]And we didn't just make it less expensive. We've done the opposite.

[00:11:42]We've made it just as hard. We removed capital gains tax. We didn't remove the red tape nonsense. That's what we needed to remove.

[00:11:52]Anyway, supply and demand.

[00:11:57]We simply don't have the supply. That's it. Fix that. we'll go back to what we were.

[00:12:04]>> So, some more bad news for homeowners, renters, and landlords. See, I recently set up Google alerts for Australian property. This week's results were absolutely horrifying. And uh I'll go through a couple with you now. Uh we'll start with the RBA boss, Michelle Bullocks, gave herself an asset rise by buying a $2 million holiday home near Byron Bay the same day she raised everyone's mortgage rates. and I suspect uh she was given a bonus for her compliance and doesn't have a mortgage on it.

[00:12:36]Uh our government in its infinite wisdom is now considering scrapping negative gearing and charging more capital gains tax on sales for landlords which means landlords cop a huge increase in mortgage costs and if they don't pass that on to renters of course the government takes a bigger cut if they decide to sell. This is their answer to solving the housing crisis. absolutely shock them. Raise taxes, rents, and mortgages. Smart of them. Uh insurance costs models have found that one quarter of our homes won't be properly insured by 2050 because of growing natural disasters and how much it costs to protect your property.

[00:13:16]They're always putting the people first, those insurance companies. So nice of them. A major Australian property mogul just announced he will be selling his whole property portfolio. I'm pretty sure he's based in Queensland. He basically said, "Look, Australia's just cooked. I'm out of here and so is my family, mate." After reading this week's property news, I'm actually so relieved we're moving our property equity over to Malaysia. Very stable country, not major issues like here. So, sorry for the bad news, guys. Uh, but you guys need to be prepared. You need to know. Peace.

[00:13:51]Let us start with the raw data because the scale of what is happening needs to be said out loud. The national median rent in Australia hits $681 a week by the end of 2025. That is not Sydney.

[00:14:04]That is the national median averaged across every city, every suburb, every rental listing in this country. Rents rose 5.2% across 2025, up from 4.8% the year before, and nearly double the rate of general inflation. In Sydney, you are looking at $800 a week for a median house rental, the highest in the country. In Perth, the median hit $740 after jumping 5.7% in a single quarter.

[00:14:32]In the regions, unit rents surged 7.3%.

[00:14:36]Rents are now at record highs in every capital city except Melbourne. The national vacancy rate sits at 1.7%.

[00:14:44]Anything below 3% is considered a landlord's market. We are at 1.7. That means for every available rental property in Australia, there are dozens of people competing for it. And property values are not slowing down either.

[00:14:57]National Australia Bank's housing monitor from January 2026 confirmed that capital city home prices rose 8.2% in 2025, pushing the national median to approximately $900,000.

[00:15:10]Homes are selling in a median of 28 days. And SQM research is forecasting property values to rise between six and 10% nationally in 2026 with Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, and Darwin potentially climbing as much as 16%. The average Australian home has already passed $1 million. And rental listings are currently sitting 17% below their 5-year average, meaning supply is not catching up. It is getting further behind. If you are renting right now, drop a comment and tell me what percentage of your weekly income goes to rent. I want to see the real numbers. Here is where it gets genuinely maddening because the housing crisis is not just happening in spite of government policy. It is being actively funded by it. Two mechanisms sit at the core of this and they are called negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. Let me explain both and then you can decide whether this looks like policy or plunder. Negative gearing works like this. When a landlord's interest repayments, council rates, maintenance, and agent fees add up to more than the rent they collect, they are technically making a loss on the property. Under Australian tax law, they can deduct that loss directly from their income tax. So, the more they bleed on the investment property, the less they pay the government in tax on their salary. The government has been funding this through loss tax revenue to the tune of $10.9 billion in the 2023 to 2024 financial year alone, projected to reach 12.3 billion in the year after that. $12 billion a year in subsidies to property investors drawn from a tax base that could have funded thousands of social housing units. Then there is the capital gains tax discount. When a property investor sells, any profit is a capital gain and should be taxed accordingly. But if they have held the property for more than 12 months, they only pay tax on 50% of the profit. The Howard government introduced this in 1999. Since that year, house prices have accelerated at a rate that has no historical precedent. The 50% discount on capital gains cost Australian taxpayers an estimated $19.7 billion in 2024 to 2025 alone. Here is who pocketed that benefit. 89% of it flowed to the top 20% of income earners. 86% went to the top 10%. The average benefit for the highest income bracket was over $86,000.

[00:17:33]The bottom 60% received around $5,000 each. Now, combine those two policies.

[00:17:39]Wealthy property investors can slash their income tax by losing money on rentals while they hold, then pay tax on only half their profits when they sell.

[00:17:47]The Graten Institute has confirmed these policies tilt the housing market towards speculative investors and directly away from first home buyers. They are not accidental distortions. They were legislated choices that have been renewed and protected for a quarter of a century. Have you ever been outbid for a rental even though you offered the asking price? Let me know below. The property market right now feels like a boxer leaning against the ropes. It's taken a few hits, but it hasn't gone completely down. This weekend's auction results, which I've got the raw data that's come in, will tell you a story of a market that's that's bruised. It's cautious, but it's staying relatively resilient. Melbourne led the major capitals with a clearance rate of 57.6%.

[00:18:36]Adelaide wasn't far behind at 56%.

[00:18:39]Sydney came in at 52%, which tells me buyers are still active, but they're obviously very selective. Brisbane, do you know it's 10:00 here at night? Look at it.

[00:18:52]It's still light here in Dublin.

[00:18:54]Brisbane, where are they? They were 40%, no, 42%.

[00:19:00]And Camber was 45%. Showing that confidence is evenly spread right around the country. Now before anyone starts making any bold predictions, let's remember we are moving and are in the quietest part of the real estate here.

[00:19:15]Winter traditionally means fewer listings, fewer buyers.

[00:19:21]Look at this church here, guys. My hotel's right opposite. So extraordinary church.

[00:19:28]That's why I don't expect anyway. Winter traditionally means less less stock, right? So, I'm not expecting much changes going on. That's why I think dramatic movements over the next month or two. Don't expect that. In fact, I think we'll see a relatively stable market as buyers and sellers and banks all wait for more certainty. That's what I think is going to happen. The real test comes in spring. That's when stock levels rise. That's when buyers are going to be looking at what the RBA's done with rates. And that's when we'll find out whether today's market stability is the foundation for a recovery or for for a recovery or simply just before prices move lower again. But there's one factor that can change everything and that's rates. And I hope the RBA is understanding the pain that's going on at the moment. and act accordingly.

[00:20:30]>> And we're now realizing this. For example, I'm visiting family tomorrow.

[00:20:34]And what am I doing to visit them?

[00:20:36]Hopping on a train and going to Newcastle because the whole family, both the parents now and the children have realized they can't afford to buy property in Sydney anymore. So, they're moving to Newcastle. I think it's always been structural because rising house prices have been caused by rising levels of mortgage debt. The fundamental causing process is taking on more debt to house cause house prices to rise. We should never have let that happen.

[00:20:57]Housing should not be an asset. Housing should not be something that you profit out of. It's something you should live in. The fact that we treat it as if it's an investment rather than a consumption item is we're being conned by the finance sector because the people who really make money out of this are real estate agents and property developers.

[00:21:13]They're the ones who really benefit out of this rising house prices. So I put forward an idea 20 years ago now uh that we could use the government's capacity to create money to cancel the level of private debt. I call it a modern debt jubilee. We've celebrated rising house prices. But imagine if we celebrated rising price of carrots. Isn't it great?

[00:21:32]Carrots are more expensive today than they were yesterday. That's stupid.

[00:21:36]Nobody does that. We say, "Oh, houses are more expensive. Isn't that good? It squeezes the working class." And that's that's what we're we're stuck with. When you take a look at house prices compared to consumer prices back in 1970, prices of most things have remained constant or fallen over time. most consumer goods religable incomes. House prices are now five times as expensive as they were in 1970 compared to consumer goods. And that's an error. We should never have allowed that to happen. We could un unwind it using the government's capacity to create money and then telling people they've got to use that to cancel their private debt and reduce the debt burden, but politically both political parties are in the pocket of the finance sector. So, they're not going to do it. thinking about how crazy it is that we're paying a fortune to send our kids to private schools and we're paying a fortune on the mortgage and out of the remainder we've got to live inside our you know we're porpers living inside castles that's that's the sort of perspective I see we have to reduce the amount of money we pay for mortgages we should also drastically reduce the amount we pay for education that should be provided by the state shouldn't be something coming out of your household dodge >> per's median house price just hit $1 million in the past week or so and you know what's more alarming It's how fast we got there. In just 4 years, house prices have grown faster than they did in the previous 20. You know, families are now spending close to 40% of their income just to pay the mortgage. In 2019, it was closer to 22%. But wages haven't kept up, especially for young people and first home buyers.

[00:23:07]Entry-level homes are now about 74% more expensive than they were in 2020.

[00:23:15]So, the deposit just keeps slipping further out of reach. That's why so many young Australians are stuck renting longer, paying record rents, or still living at home with mom and dad, even with pretty decent jobs.

[00:23:30]But when they do try to buy, they're competing with investors, often from over east in a market that's already short on homes. You're thinking, "How can we let this happen?" Well, it's not accidental. Research by AOS shows we now spend more on tax breaks for landlords than on social housing, homelessness services, and rent assistance combined.

[00:23:56]So, no, this isn't about avoid toast or bad choices. It's about fixing a broken system, increasing supply, and making rent affordable and buying achievable again. What do you think about the property price surge? Drop a comment or reach out via the link in my bio.

[00:24:17]Hi, my name's Chris and I live in Australia. And today I'm taking a walk around a new estate, a new development that's going up because I want to give I I guess some insight or just a look at what's happening in Queensland right now. I'm in southeast Queensland. I live on the Sunshine Coast and we have developments going up everywhere and I want to show the price cuz it's gone absolutely insane. Uh behind me, these will be the Australian dream for many young or Australians also downsizing.

[00:24:45]It is early morning guys. Sorry. This will become the Australian dream for many first home buyers. And the Australian dream when we look look back I say it still is. It's like what we aspire to. The Australian dream used to be 1,000 square meters a/4 acre block.

[00:25:00]Now these things here. If we we have a closer look, we can see the the limits across there. Now these these these are about 250 square meters. So it's a quarter of the Australian dream. That's what developers are putting out these days. these these little small blocks and some people, you know, they'll thank God that they got into them. But this this is what we're looking at now. These small 250 m blocks where it used to be a quarter quarter acre, 1,000 m. Now, if we start looking at pricing on this kind of stuff, I'll just keep walking through this new new estate. We start looking at pricing. Well, let's have a look at some of these numbers. So, 350 m that's now selling for $579,000.

[00:25:38]When it comes to the largest piece of land in this new release that they're putting out, which is 621 square meters, which isn't even the size of the Australian Dream. It's, you know, just over half the size of the Australian Dream. They're asking for $740,000.

[00:25:51]When it comes to the smallest, which we were just kind of looking at back there, $250 m blocks, that's $447,000 for for a quarter of what the Australian dream used to be. So, that's just for the land. That's not for the house or anything like that. If we start to looking at what it costs to to build a house out of one of these things, we're probably looking closer to what $300,000 for a no bells and whistles home. Just it's including like any of your conveyancing fees and all that kind of stuff, your building fees, anything that pops up. Call it $300,000 for a new house. So you add that on top for an entry- level home for for the young family to get started. You add that on top and what what you So you added $300,000 on top of them land values before. If you look at the cheapest piece of land, the 250 m, and then you do the 5% deposit, which the government's currently doing, well, this is the incomes you'd kind of need to earn to be able to get into a house uh for the smallest bells and whistle home on the smallest piece of land in a new estate on Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

[00:26:49]Let's have a look at these numbers. So, let's read these numbers off. So, how much do you need to earn to have a 250 m block with the most basic built house of $300,000 on it? Well, you know, that would cost you $747,000 for the house and land uh at the minimum, and you need to be only $170,000 per year to qualify for the banks on your income to be able to get that loan. Now, if you want to move up to $350 m an extra 100 m of convenience in your life, uh you need well, it's going to cost you $879,000 and you need to be earning $200,000 per year. Or if you want to go all out and you have that extra money and you want to get the 621 square meters, you know, just over half the Australian dream, it's going to cost you 1,40,000 and you'd be earning $238,000 per year. Who's earning that kind of money? What first home buyer trying to get their foot on the property ladder is earning that kind of money? They're not.

[00:27:44]They're simply not. Now, the median income in Australia, that's $70,000 per year. and median income, uh, that's your your casuals, your part times, your full-time combined in. But when we start to look across at, uh, the median full-time worker. Now, the median full-time wage in Australia, it's it's just hit 90,000 per year. So, the median income, 70,000 per year, does not qualify at all. They're locked out of the housing market in Australia. You cannot buy a house in this country.

[00:28:11]You're done. You're cooked. You're roasted. Now, we move across it to the median full-time wage, 90,000 per year.

[00:28:18]Well, you need two people on that. Two people on that earning 90,000 per year to get into that 250 square meter block of land with the most basic builds, no bells and whistles house on it. So, two people on 90,000 per year to make that 180,000 per year. Just get over that little value before just to get in. Now, you know, ask me the question, uh, does that feel like too much? So for your your your family starting out and your mom drops out, she's having kids and stuff like that and it's just dad on the income. Well, suddenly they're in mortgage stress. They can't afford it.

[00:28:50]>> And we're now realizing this. For example, I'm visiting family tomorrow.

[00:28:54]And what am I doing to visit them?

[00:28:55]Hopping on a train and going to Newcastle because the whole family, both the parents now and the children have realized they can't afford to buy property in Sydney anymore. So they're moving to Newcastle. I think it's always been structural because rising house prices have been caused by rising levels of mortgage debt. the fundamental causing process is taking on more debt to house cause house prices to rise. We should never have let that happen.

[00:29:17]Housing should not be an asset. Housing should not be something that you profit out of. It's something you should live in. The fact that we treat it as if it's an investment rather than a consumption item is we're being conned by the finance sector because the people who really make money out of this are real estate agents and property developers.

[00:29:33]They're the ones who really benefit out of this rising house prices. So I put forward an idea 20 years ago now uh that we could use the government's capacity to create money to cancel the level of private debt. I call it a modern debt jubilee. We've celebrated rising house prices. But imagine if we celebrated rising price of carrots. Isn't it great?

[00:29:51]Carrots are more expensive today than they were yesterday. That's stupid.

[00:29:55]Nobody does that. We say, "Oh, houses are more expensive today. Isn't that good? It squeezes the working class."

[00:30:00]And that's that's what we're we're stuck with. When you take a look at house prices compared to consumer prices back in 1970, prices of most things have remained constant or fallen over time.

[00:30:10]Most consumer goods religable incomes house prices are now five times as expensive as they were in 1970 compared to consumer goods. And that's an error.

[00:30:19]We should never have allowed that to happen. We could un unwind it using the government's capacity to create money and then telling people they've got to use that to cancel their private debt and reduce the debt burden. But politically, both political parties are in the pocket of the finance sector. So, they're not going to do it. Thinking about how crazy it is that we're paying a fortune to send our kids to private schools and we're paying a fortune on the mortgage and out of the remainder, we've got to live inside our, you know, we're porpers living inside castles.

[00:30:46]That's that's the sort of perspective I see. We have to reduce the amount of money we pay for mortgages. We should also drastically reduce the amount we pay for education. That should be provided by the state. Okay? It shouldn't be something coming out of your household dodge. Is Australia's housing market cooked? 12 weeks may not seem like very long, but it seems to have been long enough to have swung the brakes on the momentum of Australia's largest housing markets. The domain house price report that just dropped today has seen prices drop in both Sydney and Melbourne. Now, the foreclos home buyers rub their hands together with glee and think finally their time has come. The news is a bit on the fence right now. These could be cracked appearing, but the price drops are absolutely minuscule. However, the salient point is looking at just how quickly momentum has stopped and essentially there's been this course correction. Now, at the same time, the other states in Australia are surging ahead. You can see we're essentially going to a phase where we have a two-tiered housing market. One bucket is Melbourne, Sydney and the other the remaining states which are growing at a very solid and healthy rate despite the impact of cost of living prices, interest rate rises and affordability challenges. So what do you think? Is this the market course correcting finally as some might say or is this just a little blip? Nothing to see here.

[00:32:03]Let us know in the comments. The tax loopholes are the macro level of the rot, but there is a hands-on street level exploitation happening at every rental inspection in every city. And it is built on practices that are technically illegal, widely used, and almost completely uninforced.

[00:32:20]Rent bidding. That is where tenants are pressured or simply incentivized by competition into offering above the advertised rent to beat out other applicants. It has been officially banned across most of Australia, but the roll out tells you everything about how seriously that ban is being taken.

[00:32:36]Queensland and the Northern Territory banned both the soliciting and accepting of higher offers. Victoria only banned it in October 2025. South Australia only moved in early 2026. But here is the critical loophole that still applies in New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory. Agents in those states are banned from encouraging a higher rent, but they are still legally allowed to accept it if the tenant offers voluntarily. And a choice investigation from November 2025 confirmed that rent bidding is still happening across all of them. The mechanism is elegant in its dishonesty. The agent says nothing explicit. They mention there is a lot of competition for this property. They mention the inspection had over 30 groups come through. They ask if there is anything you want to add to strengthen your application. They never asked you to bid higher. They were just informing you and then they accept whatever you put forward. At one point 7% vacancy, the desperation of renters does the work for them. Beyond rent bidding, agents have been using underquoting strategies, listing properties below the likely accepted rent to generate a larger pool of applicants and manufacture competition.

[00:33:46]Platform fees for applying to rentals were supposed to be banned in July 2025 under new real estate law changes in New South Wales. But enforcement across states is inconsistent and landlords are also exploiting the maintenance gap. In many jurisdictions, minimum property standards only need to be met at the beginning of a teny, not sustained throughout. An agent ticks the boxes at least signing, and then the tenant spends months chasing a landlord about mold, broken heating, or non-compliant smoke alarms while the property manager runs out the clock on a complaint that costs them nothing to ignore. Drop a comment if you have ever attended a rental inspection with more than 20 other people competing for the same property. Here is the part of this story that ties everything together. The negative gearing subsidies, the capital gains tax discount, the rent bidding loopholes, the glacial reform timelines.

[00:34:37]None of it makes sense until you look at who is personally benefiting from keeping it all in place. 227 federal parliamentarians own 510 properties between them. Prime Minister Anthony Elbanzy owns three. Peter Dutton owns five. Liberal MP Ben Small owns seven.

[00:34:55]Labour Minister Tony Burke owns six. 48 Senators and MPs own 71 rental properties between them and vote on the laws governing those same properties with zero legal obligation to step aside. When the 2026 budget finally moved to restrict negative gearing, it applied only to properties purchased after budget night. Everything already held by every MP, every investor, every landlord who got in early is grandfathered and untouched. The people passing the reform protected their own portfolios from it. A University of Technology housing scholar said it directly. Extensive ownership of investment properties makes MPs far more prone to protect the interests of landlords. That is not a theory. That is the observable outcome of putting the people who benefit from high prices in charge of deciding whether prices come