These have been trying times for tenants across Australia – national rental vacancy rates have hit a record low and the cost of leasing somewhere to live in most capital cities continues to increase, according to Domain’s latest quarterly rental report released this month.

As they do so often, scammers are stepping in to exploit the demand.

Consumer regulators, banks and real estate and tenant groups are warning of criminals creating fake rental listings to steal money or sensitive information from those looking for somewhere to live.

Securing a rental requires a serious investment of time and money, so there’s lots to lose if it goes wrong. Our tips below will help you steer clear of dodgy offers.

How to avoid a rental scam:

• 1. Research the property
• 2. Research the person or company advertising the property
• 3. Know the official renting process
• 4. Exercise caution

1. Research the property

Use established real estate platforms and be wary of listings on social media

Scammers setting up fake rental listings tend to advertise them on social media or online classified marketplaces, so be careful of properties or rooms being put up for lease on these forums.

The Tenants’ Union of NSW recommends using established real estate sites like domain.com.au and realestate.com.au to find somewhere to rent.

Most of the properties or rooms listed on these platforms are offered by professional property managers, so have been vetted and verified as authentic.

It’s also a good idea to limit your searches to leases advertised by established real estate agencies.

Look for realistic prices

Ads for rentals in every state and territory have to list a fixed amount you’ll be expected to pay each rent cycle.

They can’t list a price range or invite you to make a bid, so avoid anyone doing this.

Using a trustworthy real estate platform to understand average rental prices in the area where you want to live will help you spot any offers that are too good to be true. 

Your or tenants’ union might also offer their own rent tracking and comparison tools.

Check the address

Look for the address of the property and use Google Street View to make sure it matches any photos included with the advertisement. 

But beware that scammers can steal photos and property descriptions from legitimate sources, so do a reverse image search on photos and put the text from the ad into a search engine with quotation marks at the beginning and end if you’re suspicious.

If the same images and description appear on a listing for a property in a different location or are used on lots of other listings, you’ve likely encountered a scam.

Inspect thoroughly

You should thoroughly inspect a property, inside and out, or send someone you trust to do this, before agreeing to rent it or handing over any money.

Someone running a fake listing won’t let you do this and will go to great lengths to make excuses for why it’s not possible, often claiming to be overseas or interstate.

Don’t settle for just driving past the property or looking at it from the outside – offering to let you do this is another common rental scammer tactic.

2. Research the person or company advertising the property

Work with professionals

Most home owners who want to rent their property pay a professional property manager, such as a real estate agent, to find tenants and run the leasing process.

Therefore, dealing with an established real estate firm in the area where you want to rent will reduce your chances of being caught up in a scam.

A legitimate agent negotiating a lease will follow an official application and screening process, which should take some time. 

Beware of anyone trying to rush you into handing over money straight away.

Check a property manager’s details

If a property manager works for a particular real estate agency or other group, they should be contacting you via official channels associated with that business.

Make sure their emails come from an address that includes the agency or business name, rather than a personal email service, like Gmail.

If you’re suspicious, contact an agent’s employer using details you’ve found yourself to check they are who they say they are.

Real estate agents also have to be licensed. The website of should have information on where you can search your local register.

3. Know the official renting process

Renting has become crucial to meeting Australia’s housing needs. Therefore, there are a growing number of regulations that dictate the course of any legitimate rental process.

Despite some broad similarities, rules and responsibilities for renters, property managers and landlords vary by state and territory.

Avoid falling for scammers by familiarising yourself with what information you should be given and what payments you can be asked for in the state or territory where you’re planning to rent.

Check the links below to see information from state and territory governments and consumer protection agencies on taking out a lease in:

Paying rent in advance

Each jurisdiction has limits on what fees and charges managers can request from tenants before they move in, but these vary by location.

For example, in most states and territories, renters can’t be asked to pay more than two weeks of rent in advance, but in some states they can be asked for four.

Avoid dealing with anyone asking for more than what’s allowed in your state or territory (you may not be able to rely on them to provide you with a property) and report them to .

The bond process

The maximum bond or security deposit you can be asked for also varies: in most states it’s four weeks worth of rent, but in other areas it’s six.

Luckily though, when you’ve paid a bond, almost all jurisdictions have similar strict rules on where this money has to be sent.

In everywhere except the Northern Territory, a bond can’t be held by the property manager, owner or landlord.

Rather, it has to be lodged with a government body, often a bond authority or revenue office. 

Different states and territories have different rules about whether the renter, property manager or either of these transfers this money to the relevant government body.

But most states decree that it has to be done within a certain time and that the renter should be given a receipt to prove the process has been completed.

The exception to all this is the Northern Territory, where landlords can hold a bond themselves.

Securing receipts

Tenant groups and consumer protection agencies recommend securing and keeping receipts for any payments you make.

Depending on the state or territory where you’re renting, this may be provided automatically for a bond payment, but you might need to ask the property manager or landlord for receipts of other fees, such as rent in advance.

4. Exercise caution

Securing a property can require lots of frantic back and forth with a property manager, often by email – a process which can be easy for scammers to prey on.

Business email compromise (BEC) scams see criminals gain access to the email accounts of businesses and send messages to clients asking for money or sensitive information.

Businesses in the property sector have been the target of these operations, with criminals using the BEC method to impersonate real estate agents and conveyancers in order to convince home buyers or renters to hand over sizeable sums of money.

Be wary of any unexpected emails coming from a property business you’ve been dealing with that ask you to send money to a particular bank account, especially if it’s one you haven’t used in your previous dealings with that business.

If you receive a suspicious request like this, call someone at the business to verify using a phone number that you’ve found yourself and isn’t included in the suspicious email.

Don’t get ripped off. Our expert tips can help you spot and avoid the latest scams.

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To any renter searching for a home, a successful application comes as a huge relief. 

For Ella, it was a lifeline.

An engineering apprentice in Brisbane, Ella needed a new rental to escape domestic violence. One month and several rejections later, she found a one-bedroom apartment managed by LJ Hooker.

The agent asked Ella to use a third-party platform called Rental Rewards to pay her rent; the platform charges $8.91 per quarter. 

“I’m on apprentice wages, so half of my weekly income goes to rent,” she says. “With petrol prices, and the cost of food at the moment, I’m scraping by every week.”

Ella is one of many Australian renters who feel pressured by their real estate agent to use third-party platforms, commonly known as “RentTech”, to pay their rent or request maintenance. Many are concerned about extra fees and how their data is being used.

According to a 2025 study by Consumer Policy Research Centre (CPRC), close to half of all Victorian renters are required to use apps or other technology as part of their renting arrangements.

Despite recent laws introduced across Australian states giving renters the right to say no to using these platforms, many tenants say they are given little choice.

Alternative methods not always reasonable

The law in Ella’s state of Queensland says renters must be given a “reasonably accessible” option to pay rent that doesn’t exceed normal transaction fees, so Ella asked her agent if she could pay using an alternative method.

The options LJ Hooker provided, such as a costly post office money order, cheque, or getting her employer to deduct rent from her salary weren’t accessible to Ella. When she asked for a direct debit or BPay option, the agency refused. “I think they purposefully made the fee-free option difficult.”

Although she tried to argue for a fair alternative, Ella says she needed to move in immediately as her domestic violence situation was getting worse. “I feel like I’ve been cornered into it,” she says. “I just wanted to pay my rent. There’s no point arguing.”

In response to ����Vlog’s questions, LJ Hooker said it “takes compliance with tenancy legislation seriously across all states and territories in which our franchisees operate, and these obligations form part of our franchise requirements”.

LJ Hooker went on to say: “Each franchise is responsible for ensuring its operations comply with [legislative] requirements.”

Tenants not in a position to stand up for their rights

Other states have gone a step further than Queensland.

Laws in both New South Wales and Victoria specifically state that tenants must be provided options like EFT or Centrepay to pay their rent. In NSW, tenants also cannot be forced to use an app for other renting matters such as requesting repairs.

Tenants Union NSW CEO Leo Patterson Ross says that even when agents are breaching the law, tenants are often not in a position to stand up for their rights and that some agents “dismiss the law because they’re not worried about the consequences”. 

“What is really needed is an active and visible regulator,” he says.

Deputy CEO of Tenants Victoria Cameron Bloye agrees. He says tenants aren’t empowered to make complaints. 

“Unfortunately, many renters are not willing to risk damaging the relationship and they’ll put up with some pretty bad conditions and breaches of their rights to avoid any kind of conflict,” he says.

Despite increased powers for enforcement bodies in NSW and Victoria, Patterson Ross says many renters still fear retaliation.

In an email seen by ����Vlog, a Belle Property office in Sydney told their tenants to begin using the third-party platform PropertyMe and did not provide them with other options for payment.

Belle Property told a tenant “we have implemented MePay, which will be the required method for paying from the 2nd of March 2026”. Belle Property also said “all maintenance must be reported through your PropertyMe tenant account. Maintenance requests will no longer be accepted via email or phone unless it is an emergency”.

Patterson Ross says any NSW tenant who is told they must use an app is being misled by their agency. 

“Either they don’t know the law, in which case they are breaching their code of conduct by not knowing the law, or they are actively trying to mislead and deceive the tenant.”

In response to questions from ����Vlog, Belle Property says it “does not support any approach that is inconsistent with legislative requirements”.

An imbalance of power

A spokesperson from NSW Fair Trading says in the past year it received 32 complaints relating to payments on third-party platforms.

Fair Trading’s Rental Taskforce has seven active investigations and has conducted a further nine investigations in the past 12 months. A spokesperson from Queensland’s Residential Tenancy Authority says it managed seven investigations this financial year.

Although Tasmania and Victoria (as of 31 March 2026) have outlawed third-party fees to pay rent altogether, some tenants are still worried about how rental platforms use their data.

Stephanie*, a Victorian tenant in her forties, pushed back against Belle Property when they asked her to use Ailo, another RentTech platform. She says she was “quite alarmed” at what information was collected.

Ailo’s privacy policy states they can disclose personal information to related entities, financial product issuers and credit providers.

Its website states that Ailo is regulated under an Australian Financial Services License and follows strict laws to protect information. Ailo also says it will never sell personal information to third parties.

Although Belle Property offered to discuss other rental payment options, Stephanie says her agent kept pushing her to use the app, taking six weeks to finally provide an alternative, fee-free payment method.

Stephanie says the interaction was a reminder of the power imbalance between tenants and agents. She lives with a chronic illness and says that standing up for basic legal rights as a tenant can be a scary experience.

“It’s really hard to fight that fear that it could affect your housing in any way, or have a black mark put against you. You don’t feel that you’re empowered as a tenant,” she says.

Privacy concerns

Experts say renters like Stephanie are rightly concerned about how their data is being used.

Chandni Gupta, digital policy director at CPRC, says “there’s very little transparency at the moment in how businesses, including real estate agents, collect, share and sell our personal information, and what they do with it”.

Given these apps are used for rental applications, paying leases and requesting repairs, Gupta says that “the amount of data being harvested can give rise to social profiling and potentially exclude people from being offered a home to rent”.

Lina Przhedetsky, a postdoctoral research fellow at Melbourne Law School, says rental apps may fit the definition of tenancy databases in some jurisdictions, given the nature and purpose of information they collect.

Tenancy databases can be used to blacklist tenants from applying to new homes and are tightly regulated across Australia. Przhedetsky says laws governing these databases are playing catch up and “don’t apply very neatly [to rent tech] because they’re designed for a different technology”.

Gupta adds that federal privacy laws are similarly not fit for purpose. Currently small businesses are exempt from the Privacy Act, a category most real estate agencies, as franchises, fall under. “The Privacy Act needs to apply to all businesses, no carve outs or exemptions,” she says.

Requesting repairs through AI

Rental apps have also embraced the use of artificial intelligence (AI), which some tenants say worsens their renting experience.

Jack*, a Newcastle resident renting through agency Thompson and Clarke, was told to request maintenance through an AI chatbot on a property management platform.

Jack says when he moved in, he had several urgent issues to raise with his agent, including a broken oven.

When Jack brought these issues to Thompson and Clarke directly he says he was given no choice but to use the chatbot to request repairs, despite his rights under NSW law to opt out. In emails seen by ����Vlog, he was told by a property manager that control over which platforms were used to manage maintenance requests was determined by the rental agency.

Jack says using the chatbot was “frustrating” as it could not comprehend basic maintenance issues. “I think I would have an easier time explaining the issues to my toddler,” he said.

After several months of communicating with the platform and his agent, Jack says the maintenance issues still have not been fully resolved.

Thompson and Clarke told ����Vlog the agency “does not require tenants to use any specific third-party platform to report maintenance” and that “tenants are always able to contact our office or their property manager directly”.

Who benefits from tenants using these apps?

CEO of Tenants Union NSW Leo Patterson Ross says that even though third-party platforms are being presented to renters as a way of making leasing easier and more convenient, they often perpetuate the problems experienced by tenants.

“The tech solutions being put forward are being designed in the [landlord/agent’s] interest, to support the part of the industry that has the power and is making the money,” he says.

In a search of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) records, ����Vlog found that Ray White executives have a financial stake in one of the app companies recommended by the agency. 

Ray White CFO, Luke Richardson, and CFO and Trustee of the White Family Office, Andrew Jamson (who manages the investments of the family that owns Ray White), both hold significant shares in the holding company for rent tech company Ailo.

According to Queensland Tenancy Law, property managers must disclose any financial benefits they may receive if the tenant uses a specific payment method. However, ����Vlog was unable to find any disclosure of the financial connection on either Ray White or Ailo’s websites.

����Vlog is not alleging Richardson or Jamson have acted illegally. 

A Ray White spokesperson says individual franchisees are free to choose their own systems and that they expect any individual office and agent to comply with disclosure obligations. 

“Ailo is an independent company with its own shareholders and its own commercial relationships, both within the Ray White network and with agencies outside it. Ray White does not mandate the use of Ailo across its franchised network,” the spokesperson says.

But despite real estate agencies insisting tenants have a choice, many say the actions of agents mean they feel they do not. 

“This isn’t a discretionary good, we’re not buying something just for fun or entertainment,” says Przhedetsk.

”We’re talking about an essential service that a consumer can’t walk away from.”

*Names have been changed.

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When you pay a rental bond it’s a substantial outlay that generally comes out to four weeks’ rent, so it’s natural to worry about whether you’ll eventually get your money back. Landlords have been known to lay claim to some or all of it at the end of a rental tenancy, sometimes on flimsy grounds.

Most bonds are returned in full, but only technically speaking. For instance, if you receive the same $3200 back that you put in up front, you’re actually getting back less due to inflation. Bond reimbursements aren’t tied to the consumer price index, nor do they include the interest your money would have earned over time.

Instead, the collective interest earned by bonds is mostly held and disbursed by state and territory governments. (The NT is the exception, where landlords and rental agents hold on to bond money.)

Rental bond interest around the country adds up to many millions of dollars. In many jurisdictions, the funds were initially meant to be used to pay for programs that help renters, such as tenancy support organisations and tribunals. But any connection between this money and such programs is currently unclear.

There was a 53% increase in the number of rental bonds held by the NSW Rental Bond Board from 2008 to 2025, a sign that more people have been forced to rent due to rising property prices. (The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that the number of people renting nationally increased by 43% between 2006 and 2021.)

In an increasingly tough rental market, tenancy services are more essential than ever and there is a lot of money at play.

In NSW alone, the Rental Bond Board currently holds around $2.29 billion in rental bonds. At a conservative 5% interest, the return on this sum would easily top $100 million a year. In the current system, this is funnelled into the accounts of the NSW Treasury.

At the end of the 2024–25 financial year, the Queensland Residential Tenancies Authority held 631,804 bonds at a combined value of around $1.3 billion. The interest from this money also flows behind closed doors into general government revenue.

Fewer returns, less funding

In NSW, renters are theoretically entitled to a portion of the interest their bonds earn. But the rate of return is based on the Commonwealth Bank Everyday Access Account for balances of $1000 or less, where interest rates have invariably been at 0% or very close to it. NSW rental bonds are currently reimbursed without interest.

So what happens to the interest they earn? According to a preliminary NSW 2026–27 budget submission from Tenants’ Union NSW to the state government, the NSW Treasury has been tightfisted over the past five years when it comes to returning funds to support renter-focused programs, including to the NSW Rental Bond Board itself.

The Board had previously managed rental bond investments and collected the earnings on its own, but this changed during the global financial crisis in the late 2000s. The theory was that the investment experts at NSW Treasury would be able to engineer higher returns.

But the NSW Treasury has since only been returning enough money to support existing programs, while the rental market has become much larger, housing shortages have significantly worsened, and renters have needed more assistance than ever. 

According to the Tenants’ Union NSW submission, the Rental Bond Board has operated at a significant loss for the previous three financial years, spending about $10 million more than it receives every year.

In part, the shortfall can be attributed to a diminishing return on investment for NSW rental bonds, which has dropped steadily from around 6% in 2011 to less than 4% in 2025. The NSW Treasury is apparently not doing a great job managing rental bond investments.

As Tenants’ Union NSW CEO Leo Patterson Ross, puts it, “the first step to ensuring fair usage of the returns on investment is actually obtaining a return at all.”

The submission argues that a higher rate of return would allow for better funding of projects and organisations like the NSW Tenants’ Advice and Advocacy Program, which is working to prevent homelessness, among other things. 

Taking away transparency

In Queensland, the Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA) collects and manages rental bonds.

Tenants Queensland CEO Penny Carr says that there was a “clear and direct link” between the interest earned on rental bond investments and the funding of the Tenant Advice and Advocacy Service Queensland (TAASQ) program, until it was defunded in 2012.

Around the same time, the state government took approximately $42 million from the consolidated rental bond interest held by the RTA and applied it to the delivery of social housing. This was a worthy cause, of course, but subsidised housing and renter support services are two different things.

A new government that came into power in the state in 2015 introduced a new tenancy advice program called the Queensland Statewide Tenant Advice and Referral Service (QSTARS).

“The funding for this program came from consolidated revenue, but there was still transparency over how much interest was made on rental bonds, and what that was used for and applied to. But during some of this time, bonds were earning very low interest rates,” Carr says.

The low rates of return combined with the siphoning off of $42 million for social housing put significant strains on the RTA budget, to the point where – as with the NSW Rental Bond Board – it struggled to break even.

Things changed again in 2022, when the Queensland Government decided that the RTA would no longer be funded directly by interest on rental bonds. Instead, the interest would go straight to the state government.

The Queensland RTA is now required to make a request to the government for funds to operate every year. The government also decides how much funding to provide for QSTARS. Tenants Queensland opposed the 2022 changes.

“The new process lacks transparency, and it’s unclear if there is any public disclosure of how much interest is being generated on bonds and where this money goes,” Carr says.

“Governments should deliver tenancy advisory services funded by bond interest, or return interest back to tenants.”

This was the intent when the Queensland Rental Bond Authority (the predecessor of the RTA) was established in 1989, and returning some interest to renters was also in the plan. But all of this has fallen by the wayside.

“It was more palatable when there was a direct link between bond interest and tenancy advice funding,” Carr says.

Funds to support a fair system

Speaking in his capacity as a spokesperson for the National Association of Renters’ Organisations (a coalition of state and territory tenants’ unions and advisory services across Australia), Leo Patterson Ross says the time has come for governments to come clean about where the interest from rental bonds is actually going.

“If renters are asked to give up weeks of rent as bonds then renters should be able to see that this money is being put to good use,” Ross says.

“Most states publish information covering rental prices and numbers of rentals in a way that is more authoritative than data based on advertisements.” Ross says.

“Transparent data releases should also be a feature of the bonds system. We want to see the returns used to support a fair renting system, especially by ensuring renters have access to high quality advocacy and support services.” 

It’s a noble aspiration, but for the time being the millions of dollars generated by rental bond investments can go wherever state governments decide.

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How energy efficient your home is can have a massive impact on your energy bills, which probably explains why over three-quarters of owner-occupied homes in Australia have some form of insulation.

For new homes, the energy efficiency requirements under Australia’s Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) went from six to seven stars (out of 10) in 2022, a move that is expected to save owners of new homes about $183 on their power bill every year. Energy ratings for existing homes remains a work in progress.

Achieving a seven-star rating entails a number of measures, including choosing a building site with both shade and solar access, double or triple glazing the windows, having a lot of internal doors so you can create sealed temperature zones, insulating extensively, and having lots of ceiling fans.

Rental properties generally have few or none of these features, which may explain why renters are far more likely to have trouble paying their energy bills. (Recent data from the Australian Energy Regulator revealed that 336,615 households were in energy debt last year.) 

Homes built before 2005 – when efficiency standards were introduced – are estimated to average around 1.8 stars. Many of these would be rental homes, of which only around 11% have rooftop solar.

Australia, in fact, has some of the least energy-efficient homes in the developed world. Upgrading a home to seven stars can decrease electricity costs by $1500 to $4000 a year, depending on its size and the state or territory it’s in, but landlords would need an incentive to do this other than an ethical imperative.

Most renters can’t afford to pay for comfort

New research from the advocacy group Energy Consumers Australia (ECA) reveals that 70% of renters avoid using heating or cooling because of their effect on energy bills, and 40% say that they can’t keep their homes at a comfortable temperature without facing big energy costs.

ECA is calling on state and territory governments to mandate minimum energy efficiency standards in rental properties in all states in territories. According to the organisation’s most recent research, around two-thirds of Australians agree with this position. 

ECA executive manager of advocacy and policy Dr Carol Valente tells ����Vlog that a four-star home in Sydney or Melbourne uses about one-third of the energy for heating and cooling as a one-star home, and a seven-star home uses about half of what a four-star home would use.

All that extra energy costs a lot of money. And with only 36% of rental homes having any form of insulation, you can see why renters tend to keep the air con off.

“The change in how much heating and cooling is needed because of the energy efficiency features of the building is extremely significant, and heating and cooling represents about 40% of an average household energy bill consumption,” Valente says.

Efficiency standards the exception

Valente applauds the steps that have been taken in some jurisdictions, but they are few and far between.

The ACT government requires ceiling insulation in rental homes, and in Victoria new minimum energy efficiency standards for rental homes will be phased in from March 2027, including insulation, drought-proofing, and efficiency ratings for hot water, heating and cooling systems.

“None of the other states and territories in Australia have any enforceable energy efficiency requirements for rental homes, and what’s more concerning is that some of those jurisdictions haven’t even started to think about them. There is very little political pressure on this,” Valente says.

In South Australia, the state government recently voted down a proposal to introduce such measures.

As it stands, more than two million rental homes in Australia are located in places without enforceable energy efficiency standards. One obvious reason for the resistance to upgrading is the cost to landlords.

Valente says the focus should be shifted to the hidden costs of not introducing standards.

“We know that when it comes to energy efficiency there are a lot of flow-on benefits in terms of physical and mental health and well-being and productivity that are often hard to quantify and measure but that are important to take into account,” Valente says.

Australia lagging behind comparable countries

ECA is calling on state and territory governments to apply the NatHERS ratings to rental homes, and make those ratings available to prospective renters.

It’s a system that’s already in place in other countries. In 2018, the UK introduced the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), which rates rental properties on a scale of A (best) to G (worst). This information is disclosed to renters.

Since 2020, landlords in the UK have been prohibited from renting properties with a rating below E. The EPC is also used in France, where G-rated homes were banned from the rental market starting in 2025.

“This creates accountability and gives landlords a clear market signal and a timeline to make the upgrades happen and It also makes it easier and simpler for renters and real estate agents and all the stakeholders involved to understand whether the property is compliant or not,” Valente says.

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Tenancy protections have been strengthened in some states and territories in recent years, but renting remains an iffy prospect for many. 

Despite the gains in some jurisdictions, unfair rent hikes, arbitrary evictions and unsafe conditions are common issues affecting millions of people.

Two years ago the National Cabinet – an inter-governmental group made up of the prime minister, state and territory premiers and other officials – committed to a program called ‘A Better Deal for Renters’. It was a response to the increasingly precarious state of the rental market around the country, where housing shortages and high rents had become the norm.

The aim was to develop a nationally consistent approach to ending no-grounds evictions, limiting rent increases to once a year and establishing minimum standards for the quality and safety of residences.  

The first two measures have come to pass in NSW, Victoria, the ACT, and South Australia, but a recent report from the National Association of Renters’ Organisations and National Shelter reveals that the rest of the country still has a long way to go on these and other rights.

Reforms needed to make renting fair across the country  

Currently, the strength of your rental rights depends on where you live, a situation that needs to change, says John Engeler, CEO of Shelter NSW and spokesperson for National Shelter.

“The rental experience in Australia shouldn’t differ depending on what side of the Murray or Tweed you are renting on,” Engeler says. “The experience of renting should be consistent across all states and territories, especially as Australia’s renting population increases.”

Alice Pennycott, principal lawyer for Western Australia’s Circle Green Community Legal Centre, says the situation for renters in WA  is “especially grim”.

“We continue to fall further behind the rest of the country, and renters are left exposed while the government delays action on the most basic and fundamental reforms.”

Renters in Tasmania are also in a tight spot, according to Alex Bomford, acting principal solicitor with the Tenants’ Union of Tasmania. “Whilst other jurisdictions have implemented extensive reforms in recent years, Tasmania’s renters have been left behind, with no significant changes being made to the tenancy legislation in more than a decade,” he says. “Renting in Tasmania is insecure, unaffordable and unsafe.”  

And even where rental reforms have been enacted, they often haven’t gone far enough. CEO of ACT Shelter Corinne Dobson says “renters in the ACT still face serious challenges – from inadequate minimum standards to weak privacy protections – and it’s clear all governments must do more to turn reform commitments into real change on the ground”.

The long road to reform

The difficulties of renting in Australia seemed to escalate dramatically in the 2010s. In 2017, we published a major report which revealed that 83% of renters around the country had no fixed-term lease or were on leases less than 12 months long.

Half the tenants who took part in the study said they’ve been discriminated against, and an equal percentage said they were worried about being blacklisted on a ‘bad tenant’ database.

Twenty percent of the renters we heard from said they had experienced leaking, flooding and issues with mould.

In a follow-up report in 2018, we delivered more disturbing news. More than half the people we heard from in our national survey lived in homes in need of repair. Women over 55 were doing it particularly tough, with 66% of them reporting that they would find a rent increase of 10% difficult or very difficult to afford, compared with 39% of the rest of the population.

Nearly seven out of 10 renters were concerned that a request for repairs could mean a rent increase and 44% were concerned it could get them evicted from their homes.

In some states and territories, little has changed since that 2018 survey. 

Northern Territory and WA faring the worst

The National Association of Renters’ Organisations report rates states and territories on a range of criteria, including their approaches to no-grounds and retaliatory evictions, limits on rent increases and minimum housing standards.  

The Northern Territories is singled out for making “no progress” on behalf of renters in any of these areas, while no-grounds evictions remain a significant issue in Western Australia, along with the lack of minimum standards.

Several states (the ACT, Tasmania and WA) still haven’t made rentals easy to apply for and are still failing to protect renters’ personal information.

Leo Patterson Ross, spokesperson for National Association of Renters’ Organisations and CEO of Tenants’ Union NSW, says government leadership “needs to be coupled with effective and evidence-based approaches to delivering and regulating the sector”. 

“We haven’t yet seen a comprehensive approach by the federal government that ensures the voices and experiences of renters are heard when decisions affecting their lives are being made,” he says.

National Shelter is calling on the federal government to oversee the harmonisation of rental laws across Australia, so that someday renters can enjoy levels of security and stability similar to those who own their home.

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The property was listed at $750 per week online, but after Seamus applied, the real estate agent called him and asked if he would be willing to go to $800 to secure the property. 

It’s called rent bidding, where renters are either encouraged by real estate agents or decide on their own to offer more money than a property is listed for in a bid to secure a place to live amid a severe shortage of available housing on the market.  

“It was frustrating and it made me distrustful of the agent and the system. It was just sort of happening in a kind of ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ way instead of being completely explicit,” says Seamus. 

Seamus says he no longer trusted the agent and decided to take his property search elsewhere. 

“This was a big real estate agency, so it makes you think it must be happening all the time,” he says. 

New reforms, modest penalties  

Three years later and, despite legislative change in New South Wales, another Sydney renter, Oliver, had an almost identical experience to Seamus. This time it was illegal.  

In 2022, New South Wales outlawed real estate agents or landlords encouraging or asking prospective renters to offer more money on a rental property.  

“The agent said they had received an offer of $790 per week and we should put in another one at $800 if we wanted the property,” Oliver says. 

Oliver says he thought the agent was bluffing and kept his offer at $750, the price originally advertised, which the agent then accepted. 

“It’s pretty annoying. You feel like you’ve got no choice but to bid and the agent has all the power and information to use against you. You don’t want to participate in the (bidding) system, but it’s so competitive,” he says. 

Oliver says he looked online for information about the penalties real estate agents face for encouraging rent bidding in New South Wales – a maximum infringement notice of $1100 – and decided it wasn’t worth reporting his agent and souring the relationship he had to maintain with them as managers of the property he would be living in.

Courts can order larger penalties of up to $5500 for an individual, however it isn’t clear when an agent would be taken to court rather than issued an infringement notice.

Around the country 

Most states and territories in Australia have made an effort to outlaw rent bidding. But the strength of the legislation varies among jurisdictions. Some have significant loopholes, and the penalties vary from mild to significant. The result is that rent bidding still persists

Queensland and the Northern Territory have banned both the offering and accepting of offers above the advertised price. Victoria will follow suit shortly, with a ban on accepting higher offers expected to come into effect in November 2025. 

 South Australia says the assessment of an application can’t be based on the offer of higher rent. 

New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory have banned real estate agents from encouraging or telling prospective renters to bid higher, but haven’t banned agents or landlords from accepting unsolicited offers above the advertised price. 

Okay to offer but not to ask  

Leo Patterson Ross, chief executive officer of Tenants Union NSW says his state is lagging behind other jurisdictions and the so-called ban on rent bidding hasn’t been effective. 

“Rent bidding is a symptom of a really tight rental market. If you’ve got a situation where the law says people are allowed to bid, it just can’t be solicited, then you haven’t really stopped rent bidding,” he says. 

“All the time I hear of agents saying ‘I can’t tell you to bid, but it might be in your best interest’, or ‘I’ve had a lot of interest in this property, you need your application to stand out’.”

“They are being sly about it,” says Ross. 

Ross says that the penalties in NSW for a real estate agent or landlord who solicits a bid aren’t high enough to act as a deterrent.  

In South Australia the penalties go up to $20,000. 

Leading the way 

Tenants Queensland CEO Penny Carr says reforms in her state, which ban both asking for and accepting higher offers, have proven more effective. 

“Speaking to our workers, no one is really hearing about rent bidding now. It seems like the reforms have been fairly successful,” she says. 

“You need to just make it a blanket ban on accepting higher offers so you can enforce it,” Carr says. 

����Vlog looks for a rental  

����Vlog mystery-shopped five real estate agents located in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane respectively to see if they were complying with laws governing rent bidding. 

In Brisbane, we asked agents with listings on realestate.com.au whether they would be willing to accept higher offers for five properties listed in the suburb of West End. In each instance the agent either declined the offer for a higher rental amount or didn’t directly respond.

In Sydney and Melbourne, the real estate agents we mystery-shopped (in Newtown and Northcote respectively) left it open to us to bid higher, but most stopped short of directly asking or encouraging us to do so. 

“It’s up to you if you would like to offer more,” one Sydney real estate agent said. 

“Happy to submit any offer with your application,” one Melbourne real estate agent said when we asked if we should bid more.

Another Sydney real estate agent encouraged us to bid higher when we asked directly if we should bid more to secure the Newtown property. “If you offer higher offer (sic) absolutely you get more chances to secure the property,” the agent said. 

More work to do 

Bernie Barrett, deputy CEO of the rental advocacy group BetterRenting, says more work needs to be done around the country to strengthen rent bidding bans. 

“You’ve got to think that people who are looking for new rental properties, because of the scarcity of rental properties, are in desperate situations,” she says. 

“We want the cost of rent to be reflective of what the property is actually worth and we want it to be fair and equitable for all people who are trying to find a home,” Barrett adds. 

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In July this year the NSW government raised hopes for renters that the fear of being kicked out of their homes might not always be hanging over their heads. 

The state announced it would be introducing legislation to abolish ‘no grounds evictions’, that everyday scenario where the renter is asked to pack up and get out without having broken the terms of the lease or otherwise been a bad tenant. 

Renters make up around one-third of households across NSW, and for many of those roughly two million people a firmer grip on long-term tenancy would amount to a life-changing event.  

In a series of forums sponsored by the Tenants’ Union of NSW and the Sydney Alliance held across the state this year, renters made it clear that the uncertainty of how long they’d be able to stay in their homes was a huge part of what made renting so stressful. 

Other countries have moved forward on making the rental market a more compassionate environment – or are trying to. Scotland banned no-grounds evictions in 2016. New Zealand banned them in 2021, though a bill has been introduced by the National Party coalition to reinstate them. The UK government introduced a bill to ban no-grounds evictions in 2023,  though it has yet to become law. Bans on no-grounds evictions have also been enacted in several Australian jurisdictions (see below). 

When the NSW reforms were announced, Minister for Housing and Homelessness Rose Jackson voiced the feelings of many renters, saying those “who do the right thing – pay their rent, look after the house – should not have to be in a constant limbo with the possibility of an eviction for no reason just around the corner”.

Rental commissioner Trina Jones said the commitment to ending no grounds evictions “is a major step in a broader effort to create a fair, quality, and affordable rental market”. 

But with over 90% of the rental properties in NSW owned by individual investors – many of whom are looking to squeeze the most out of their investment – that effort seems likely to remain a work in progress. 

Under the proposed new regime, tenants can still be evicted whenever landlords give the word. The difference is that they’ll have enhanced legal leverage to challenge an eviction at the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal – should they choose to fight. 

Notification timeframes to be increased 

The power landlords and their agents currently have to evict tenants in NSW goes virtually unchecked, and a continuous cycle of having to find a new place to live is a common experience for renters. It’s also one of life’s most difficult and disorienting ones, especially when school-age children are caught up in the wholesale disruption. 

And eviction can happen with alarming speed. Under the current rules, landlords in NSW have to give tenants on a fixed-term lease just 30 days’ notice that it won’t be renewed. For periodic leases, where tenants are paying month by month, it’s 90 days. 

Along with putting an end to no-grounds evictions, the proposed legislation calls for adjusting these time frames to 60 days’ notice for leases shorter than six months, and 90 days for longer leases. The notification period for periodic leases would stay the same. 

In today’s rental market, especially in Sydney, these are still very tight windows to engage in the mad scramble of finding a new place to live. 

Tenants’ Union NSW wants to see the notice period for allowable no-fault evictions extended to 120 days in all cases, and the organisation is calling for tenants to be able to move out at any time during this period without having to pay a penalty.

When can landlords evict tenants under the new rules?

If the proposed NSW bill is passed by the state Parliament, here are some of the legal grounds landlords and agents will have to evict tenants on both periodic and fixed-terms leases. 

• The property requires major repairs or renovations that mean people can’t live there. Under this scenario, it can’t be put up for rent again for at least four weeks.
• There will be a change in use of the property, such as from residential to commercial. 
• The owner or their family wants to move back in.
• The owner wants the property to be sold as a vacant property. 

Tenants can also be evicted for a number of reasons that predate the proposed new rules, such as failing to pay rent or otherwise violating the terms of the lease. 

Other changes that are expected to be included in the NSW reforms are in line with measures ����Vlog has been pushing for in recent years, including new privacy protections on renter data harvested from online rental platforms and an end to being hit with fees for background checks before your rental agreement even begins.

Tenants’ Union NSW has some concerns 

The NSW reforms are expected to take effect in early 2025 and their final design has yet to be revealed, but Tenants’ Union NSW CEO Leo Patterson Ross tells ����Vlog that the organisation has some initial concerns. 

One is that landlords might say they need tenants to leave so repairs can be done that should have been done when they lived there and that don’t require that the property be vacated. 

“We have proposed that an eviction notice on these grounds only proceeds if it follows an unsuccessful negotiation with the tenant for the tenancy to continue after the repairs or renovations have been completed,” Ross says. 

Landlords have been known to flout the current NSW rules on this point, which allow them to evict renters if the place has supposedly become uninhabitable. 

“We have seen situations, such as following the 2022 Lismore floods, where the property only needed relatively mild cleaning or repairs but the tenants were evicted regardless and the property put back up for rent at a significant premium.”

As with many existing renters’ rights, one problem with enforcing the new rules will be independent verification. Trusting landlords to do the right thing without oversight puts tenants in a position of trying to enforce the law themselves. Tenants’ Union NSW would like to see that any eviction notice “is provided with clear and reliable evidence up front”. Short of such evidence, penalties from NSW Fair Trading along with compensation for tenants should be in order. 

Maximising the sale price 

Another worry about the current proposed reforms is that they include a legitimate ground for evictions that accepts the idea that landlord’s need renters to leave so they can sell the place. 

“There are no situations where the owner truly needs to have the property vacant prior to the sale occurring. The reason they prefer it to be vacant is to maximise the sale price,” Ross says. 

Given that, the Tenants’ Union wants to see landlords help pay for the cost of tenants to move if it comes to that, “in the same way that owners pay agents and decorators to maximise the sale price”. 

In cases where a landlord evicts a tenant on legitimate grounds but then changes their mind and wants to put the rental back on the market, the new rules are expected to impose a waiting period before landlords can list the property and to require permission from NSW Fair Trading if they want to cut the waiting period short. But it’s not yet clear exactly how this will work, Ross says. 

“While a small group of campaigners will oppose nearly all changes, we know most landlords are comfortable with reasonable changes,” Ross says, though he acknowledges that his organisation’s proposed 120-day notice period is probably a long shot and that the government’s recommended time frames are more likely to go through. 

Will the new no-grounds eviction rules be a gamechanger for renters in NSW? Ross believes they will take some of the pressures off, but certainly not all of them. 

“These reforms are not a silver bullet, and we don’t believe there are any single solutions that address all problems. But this is a really important foundation for a fair renting system,” he says.

What’s the status of no-grounds evictions around Australia? 

The move to ban no-grounds evictions has been gaining ground in recent years. 

Victoria outlawed them in 2021 and, like the proposed NSW reforms, legitimate grounds in the state now include a change of use of the property, putting it up for sale, or a landlord moving back in. The  Australian Capital Territory followed suit in 2023.  

In South Australia, no-grounds evictions were prohibited in July this year. Historically, around 40% of tenancies have been ended by landlords in SA – usually at the end of a fixed term lease – and half of periodic leases have been terminated with no reason given. 

The legitimate grounds for eviction in SA and the ACT are generally the same as those in Victoria and the upcoming NSW reforms.

Retaliatory evictions not as easy in Victoria 

Tenants Victoria lead lawyer for community education, Ben Cording, tells ����Vlog that the 2021 tenancy law change in the state was clearly a win for renters, though longer-term tenancies remain elusive due to the market forces of low housing stock and ever-increasing rents.

Among other things, renters now have protections against the widespread practice of retaliatory eviction. 

“Before these reforms, renters were vulnerable to eviction once their fixed-term leases ended, often fearing that asserting their rights or requesting repairs could result in an eviction through the no-grounds notice,” Cording says. “This system exacerbated the power imbalance between landlords and renters, with landlords able to end tenancies without justification.”

Now landlords in Victoria must provide supporting evidence if they evict a tenant on the grounds that they’re renovating, selling or moving back into the property – the same requirement Tenants’ Union NSW says needs to be a big part of that state’s reform package. 

And if the case ends up in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, that adjudicating body must now apply a ‘reasonable and proportionate’ test to determine on a human level whether an eviction would hurt the tenant more than prohibiting it would hurt the landlord. 

Despite how hard it is to find a place to live that you can continue to afford, “Victoria’s private housing stock is now better-regulated to protect consumers who depend on this essential service in such a fierce market. Renters are better able to assert their rights without the anxiety of being evicted for no clear grounds,” Cording says.  

He also points out that the ban on no-grounds evictions “does not prevent a landlord from recovering their investment. No one is stopping the rental provider from eventually getting their property back or dealing with challenging issues appropriately”.

Landlords may just have to wait longer for tenants to leave, and perhaps in the process come to better appreciate that this is a person’s home that’s at play, not just an investment.  

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In the middle of Saint Georges Road in the suburb of Preston, around half a dozen people have been sleeping in tents for the week-long action. Protesters Shannon and Justin sit on camp chairs and share their thoughts behind setting up the site. 

“We just want to let people know that people are homeless and need help,” Shannon says. 

“Homelessness is swept under the rug quite a lot, a lot of homeless people do try and hide themselves, people feel like they aren’t part of society. We are here, bringing it into the open, putting signs up so people see us and to know there are rough sleepers out there,” he adds. 

Neither Shannon nor Justin are homeless at the moment, but they have been in insecure housing for most of their lives and have slept rough in the past.

“I’ve hardly ever had a lease in my name, so you can just be turfed out at any point. I worry about what would happen if I ever had to look for another rental,” Justin says.

A largely invisible problem

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, at the last Census count in 2021 there were around 30,000 Victorians who were homeless. The majority of those were in temporary, insecure or unsafe housing, with those sleeping rough representing a minority of homeless people. 

Tanya Corrie, chair of the North Homelessness Network, says those sleeping rough are just the “tip of the iceberg”.

“There are so many forms of homelessness that people don’t see. So much unsuitable and unsafe accommodation. We are seeing an increase in homelessness across the region and homeless services are at a breaking point,” she says. 

One of the biggest trends, Corrie adds, is the increase in working people seeking housing crisis support services. The majority of those seeking help across the state are women, many with children. 

“The need for services is greater than ever, yet as providers we are scrambling every year just to get the crumbs [of government funding] rather than being funded as an essential service,” she says. 

Shannon and Justin say that along with government support for housing there needs to be a change of attitude in society towards homeless people. 

“When you are sleeping rough you are on the down low, you don’t want to be seen by people out there. There is shame attached to it, but there shouldn’t be, it’s not the homeless person’s fault they are homeless, we have got a system that is failing us,” Justin says.

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That’s because ‘no-grounds’ evictions are allowed in NSW and other states and territories across Australia, meaning the landlord can serve you with an eviction notice without having to give a reason.

In NSW, that can happen 30 days before a fixed-term lease expires. If you’re on a periodic month-to-month lease, you’ll get a minimum of 90 days’ notice.

With rental markets across Australia at boiling point, an out-of-the-blue eviction is a very bad piece of news to receive. Yet somewhere around 28,000 people receive a no-grounds eviction notice in NSW every year.

The nagging uncertainty affects renters psychologically, emotionally, and, of course, financially, as a new report by Tenants’ Union NSW, A Constant Worry: Renters confront the impact of unfair evictions, makes clear.

The report draws on the experiences of 123 NSW renters who’ve been subject to a no-grounds eviction and highlights the many negative impacts the event has had on their lives, from the onerous task of trying to find a new home, to unforeseen moving costs, to being pulled from community and friends, to, in some cases, becoming homeless.

‘A loss at what to do’: Renters share their stories

“The weeks and months following the no-grounds eviction was one of the most stressful periods of my life,” a renter in Sydney’s Inner West told Tenants’ Union NSW.

“It was logistically challenging and emotionally taxing to be house hunting while also working full time. Most housing inspections were during business hours, which either meant that I couldn’t attend or that I had to take time off work to check out a property that might not be suitable or that I might not get.”

A woman in her 70s reported: “I have had four no-grounds evictions in 10 years. It depletes my small reserve of savings as it costs money to move. It has just happened again and I am at a loss at what to do.”

Families with children describe the deep disruption of having to change schools, make new friends, find new day care arrangements, and essentially start over with some of life’s most important markers of stability.

Rental laws under review

The timing of the report is no accident: The NSW Government is currently reviewing rental laws and has floated the possible removal of no-grounds evictions in an update to NSW tenancy legislation.

��᰿���䷡��lodged a submission to the review in August 2023, calling for an end to no-grounds evictions and advocating for the inclusion of a range of other renter protections.

What needs to change?

Tenants’ Union NSW CEO Leo Ross Patterson tells ����Vlog the report comes at a particularly difficult moment for NSW renters and others across the county, when rents are high, availability is low, and landlords and agents have all the power.

“We have become used to a system that treats people’s homes too cavalierly,” Ross says. “It’s too easy to just evict someone, and that’s not seen as a serious thing to do, it’s not seen as something that has serious impacts on their lives. Sometimes the outcome of leaving a home is having to leave a community and leave connections to a whole range of other things.”

Ross points out that protections for renters against groundless evictions have been in place in other advanced economies around the world for years.

Tenants’ Union NSW is calling for no-grounds evictions to be replaced by reasonable grounds evictions, some of which are already codified in the NSW Residential Tenancies Act.

They include a landlord moving back into the home, a major renovation, a tenant breaching the tenancy agreement, or the sale of a home.

These may well be the reasons that some tenants receive an eviction notice as it stands, but in today’s rental environment the tenant may never know. 

It’s an information imbalance that pervades the rental market and has engendered a culture of distrust, if not antagonism, between landlords and renters, Ross says.

“What comes up through this report again and again and through conversations with renters is that, although there are usually reasons behind an eviction, renters are not told what they are,” Ross says. “And when you’re not being given any reason at all, you fill the vacuum with worry. That really undermines people’s trust in the landlord or agent.”

Tenants may wonder if a request for repairs was the cause, for instance, or if the landlord simply wants to significantly raise the rent.

Eviction through rent increases

Excessive rent increases are one way landlords try to get rid of tenants in NSW, but tenants have the right to contest such increases at the state tribunal.

In reality, though, few have the time or resources to go through the process.

“We have seen people receive a rent increase and an eviction notice at the same time and essentially told to pick one,” Ross says. “That means there’s a very strong incentive to accept the increase regardless of any evidence that it’s fair, because you would rather do that than move out.”

The contractual agreement outlined in a lease is meant to give the landlord certainty of rental income and the tenant certainty of a place to live. And while tenants do have some rights under the contract, the landlord has the ultimate right to end it whenever they want.

“The human consequence of all this is the constant worry about not being able to rely on having a home,” Ross says.

The move to end no-grounds evictions in NSW is partly about increasing transparency, so tenants know they’re not being kicked out as retaliation for requesting repairs or otherwise exercising their rights.

“If a  landlord wants to evict a tenant, it should be because they’ve breached the agreement or the tenancy is no longer viable because of a home sale or a major renovation. There needs to be a genuine reason why a renter should leave their home.”

Tenants’ Union NSW is calling for compensation for renters who’ve been evicted without the reasonable grounds criteria being met. The government review is still underway. 

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It’s a practice that works a lot like a bribe, and many feel they have no choice but to engage in it.

For people desperate to secure a property, it can also be a last resort.

Perhaps the most notorious form of rent bidding is when a rental agent or landlord lets prospective tenants know they should go higher than the advertised price if they really want the place.

Tenants end up offering more, without knowing if others have also offered more – or how much more

With demand high and supply critically low in recent years, many prospective renters have been willing to make side deals with the people who have the power to get them into a home. 

It was certainly happening in Sydney’s tough rental market before it became illegal for agents to instigate rent bidding in December 2022 and for landlords to do so in August 2023. 

But it’s no secret that it continued to happen in Sydney after these reforms came into place. And you don’t have to be a cynic to assume it still goes on. 

Nevertheless, rent bidding instigated by agents or landlords is now illegal everywhere in Australia. 

Offering more without being asked 

But there’s another, perhaps more insidious form of rent bidding that’s less visible than the standard kind. 

It’s when the prospective tenant offers to pay more than the advertised price without being asked to. 

This form of rent bidding has not been expressly outlawed in most jurisdictions across Australia, even though the economic discrimination is the same: those who can afford to pay more are more likely to find a place to live. 

One mid-twenties couple we recently spoke to who were desperate to find a place in Sydney said they had offered between $25 and $75 more per week with every application. 

“It’s just what we felt like we had to do,” Michael told us. “Every showing we went to was packed and we needed a place to live. I can’t know for sure if others also offered more, but I’m pretty sure they did. We both have good jobs, so it was probably that, plus the offer to pay more, that finally got us a place.” 

Another renter who we’ll call Jack told us he offered to pay $30 more on a place advertised for $670 in the Beverley Hills suburb of Sydney in November 2022. 

He did it because he was informed by his rental agent before the December 2022 ban took effect that a competing renter had offered $695. 

“The desire to secure a tenancy was crucial given my circumstances of moving from Queensland to New South Wales,” Jack says. 

He didn’t think it was fair for the agent to disclose bids from other people vying for the rental. 

We heard from several other renters who offered more than the advertised rent, as well as renters who offered to pay several months’ rent up front. 

Daniel told us he initially resisted offering more rent than was advertised but buckled after being rejected for several properties. 

“After trying $10 more than the asking price and getting a little more interest but nothing final, I ramped up to also offering a large chunk of rent up front,” Daniel says. 

“In the application for our current place, and other applications around the same time, I offered $10 over the asking pricing and roughly $2500 in advance rent. We were shortlisted for most of the properties we applied for when we offered that.” 

Will Queensland stop all forms of bidding? 

Rent bidding by renters certainly goes on, but lately there are signs that it may not go on forever. 

In Queensland, where the shortage of rental properties has reached crisis proportions, the government recently announced a plan to prohibit agents or landlords from accepting offers to pay more than the advertised rent. 

That would put an end to rent bidding in the state in any form – full stop. 

There are some precedents. Tenancy law was updated in the Northern Territory in January this year, making it illegal for a landlord to accept more than the advertised rent unless unless additional services or benefits are offered.

The Queensland proposal has yet to become law, but Tenants Queensland SEO Penny Carr tells ����Vlog that policymakers in the state have signalled rent bidding will come to an end with that one simple change. 

“The agent won’t be able to accept a higher price than what has been advertised,” Carr says. “Nobody can offer more or ask for more.” 

That’s important because, with tenants still allowed to offer more, the ban on rent bidding in Queensland and other states by agents and landlords may not have changed much. 

“It’s hard to know if it made any difference,” Carr says. “There may have been agents who acted within the law, but there is definitely a lot of surreptitious encouragement to up-bid.” 

Like Sydneysiders, some Queenslanders struggling to find a home will offer to pay several months up front, a practice that should also be prohibited if the proposed government reforms go through. 

“It’s definitely my understanding that that would be outlawed as well, but we haven’t seen anything in writing yet,” Carr says. 

The reforms won’t put an end to the struggles renters face, but they should help. 

“It’s not a panacea because you will still have unaffordable rents being offered due to supply and demand, but it will even up the stakes a little for people, particularly those on lower incomes,” Carr says. 

Having the new regulations on the books should also make enforcement easier. 

“I think having just a complete ban on rent bidding – it doesn’t matter who’s doing it, you can’t accept a bid above the advertised price – makes it a lot easier for regulators to gain compliance or for people to make complaints when there’s been no compliance.”

NSW should adopt the Queensland model   

Tenants’ Union of NSW policy and advocacy manager Jemima Mowbray tells ����Vlog that renter-initiated rent bidding in Sydney and other high-pressure markets is an unfortunate reality. 

“Renters often find themselves in a very stressful situation, worried that if they don’t find a new home in time, they’ll have nowhere to go. They may feel like their only option is to make an offer above the advertised price. Some will do this knowing it will be a stretch on their budget, but they may feel they have no choice.” 

On top of that, efforts by NSW Fair Trading to clamp down on illegal rent bidding have only gone so far, Mowbray says. 

“Some agents continue to encourage applicants to offer higher rent if they’re keen to get an advantage over others when applying for a property.” 

The solution is to adopt the proposed Queensland model, Mowbray says.  

“In order to genuinely end rent bidding, landlords and their agents should not be allowed to accept offers of rent above what property is advertised for. Penalties should apply where they’re in breach of this.” 

(Editor’s note: pseudonyms were used in this article.) 

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