The role of private rental brokerage in housing outcomes for vulnerable Australians: Final report

Abstract

This Final Report outlines the findings of research investigating the role of private rental brokerage in supporting housing outcomes for vulnerable households in the private rental market. In the last two decades the private rental market has become increasingly important in providing homes for Australians. It has also become increasingly competitive, particularly at the lower-end, where supply has fallen significantly behind demand. Given the lack of affordable ownership options in many local housing markets, and the contraction of public housing, many households with low or moderate means must now look to the private rental sector for their housing over the longer term. Government policy has encouraged renters who would otherwise be eligible for social housing to move into the private rental market. This tenure shift has been supported by the provision of several assistance measures for private renters. Those best known and understood are Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) and state and territory Private Rent Assistance (PRA) programs, which provide bond and rent loans to eligible people. Two other elements also exist alongside the best known private rental supports: the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) (although as the planned further expansion of this scheme was halted by the newly elected Abbott Government in budget 2014/15 thereby limiting its future potential as a supply-side private rental assistance measure) and private rental brokerage. This report is concerned specifically with private rental brokerage; a previously underresearched measure among private rental supports nationally. Conceptually, we describe private rental brokerage as the 'third pillar' of supports nationally, sitting alongside the much larger CRA measure and, as the research findings reported here note, reinforcing the reach and impact of PRA.