Half a million rental properties short: UDIA

Pointing to an affordable rental property shortage of half a million properties, the UDIA has called for the Federal Government to extend the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS).  

Focusing on affordable rental dwellings, UDIA national president Julie Katz said that the NRAS program had been assisting with increasing the stock of affordable rental dwellings.

“Thousands of new affordable rental dwellings have been built under the NRAS program since it began in 2008, providing low income households with an affordable home, and investors with attractive returns,” said Katz.

“The most recent round of NRAS funding, which took place earlier this year, will take the total number of homes provided under the scheme up to 50,000, but there is no plan for the future of the scheme once those have been delivered”. 

This comes as buyer’s agent Todd Hunter says that he would rather stick a fork in his eye than buy an NRAS property.

“It would be extremely disappointing to see the scheme end, considering how successful it has been to date, and also given the growing housing affordability problems facing Australian cities,” said Katz.