Naked City: Welcome to Slumlord Millionaires

It’s a story that’s been written many times over the past few months – the chronic shortage of rental accommodation in Sydney and the stampede of hopefuls whenever a property ‘to let’ comes on the market. Anybody who has queued up for a recent inspection will be aware of the lottery involved in applying to rent a house, apartment, or anything that vaguely resembles a reasonable living space.

Ask somebody who lived in Sydney before the 2000 Olympics and they will tell you how easy it was to find rental accommodation in the inner city. There was an abundance of cheap apartments, houses and even ‘creative’ spaces like warehouses and shopfronts. Today with a residential vacancy rate in the inner city hovering around 1.3 per cent, it’s a daunting prospect for anybody looking for a pad to call home.

If that figure is not bad enough, demand has pushed up rental costs and opened the market to all manner of unscrupulous exploitation. Hey, you wouldn’t expect anything less in good old Sydney, which historically has always been the ‘home of the lightning quick buck’ – whether it’s stuffing eight or more overseas students into a two-bedroom CBD apartment or running a fleabag Marrickville boarding house.

One thing’s for certain, the cost per square metre of rental space is going through the roof and we are fast approaching the New York/London scenario where broom cupboard sized studios rent for outrageous rates. Commercial real estate (like shops and warehouses) is generally marketed at a cost per square metre per annum and maybe that’s the way the residential market will follow.

Instead of wide-angle pics of tiny Kings Cross studios, marketed as quirky art deco apartments on realestate.com.au, we would love to see some blatant, albeit horrifying honesty on the part of those landlords and agents focusing on the bottom of the market. If the apartment is a claustrophobic dump, about the size of a shipping container and as dark as one inside, why not say so? That would certainly cut down on the queues at the inspection and the gazumpers ready to bypass the application process with a cash incentive (although that of course has been outlawed these days).

Honest Joe, the Slumlord Millionaire might not be welcome in the real estate institute but at least you’d know what to expect with the bastard. Walk into his office at 10 Rillington Place and survey the range of godforsaken ratholes to rent. “This one even comes with a free TV,” Joe enthusiastically exclaims, “although you’ll need a set-top box to make the sucker work.

“There’s even a harbour view,” he jokingly adds, “but you might break your neck climbing on the roof to see it.”

There’s no need to sign a silly lease with Honest Joe but fall behind with the rent and expect a visit from a couple of his heavies. And if the hot water system explodes or the toilet clogs up, then don’t go complaining to Joe. “Look mate, if you don’t like the place, I’ve got twenty more people ready to move in tomorrow.”

Of course we all know this dystopian view of Sydney rental accommodation is but a nightmarish fantasy and that the legislation is there to protect hapless tenants from shonky landlords and agents. Also, the State government has promised to encourage the building of thousands of new apartments as well as public housing. However, as that vacancy rate slips well below 1 per cent, Tasmania looks more than just a popular tourist destination.