There are hundreds of would-be private rental properties going without tenants for six months because of new state government regulations.
The NSW Government has knocked back 374 applications by intending landlords under its May 2025 pro-tenant rental reforms.
The new rules take effect when a rental tenancy ends because the property was listed for sale. But with vendors increasingly struggling to sell, and then seeking to return the property to the renting pool, a six‑month re‑letting exclusion automatically applies. “
Landlords were denied the chance to rent out their properties. Picture: Liam Kidston.
This is designed to prevent misuse of the system, including ending a tenancy just to re‑rent the property at a higher price,” a NSW Fair Trading Department spokesperson said.
“If circumstances genuinely change, landlords can apply to NSW Fair Trading to re‑let the property early, but they must show that change is real and outside their control.
“Applications undergo a rigorous review process to ensure that the grounds for eviction are genuine.”
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Premier Chris Minns’ reforms have had an undesired effect for tenants. Picture: Gaye Gerard
Since July 2025, NSW Fair Trading has received 996 applications for a re-letting exemption; 622 of these were approved.
The requests included failure to sell, or other circumstances beyond the property owner’s control such as illness, relationship breakdowns or financial hardship.
It is understood more than half of the 996 applications were due to no longer proceeding with a sale.
It is not known how many more properties are vacant with the landlord not bothering to lodge an application given privacy concerns or an aversion to red tape.
“This policy is absolutely cooked,” Drew Evans, an investor and buyers agent, recently posted on social media after deciding not to run the risk of finding a buyer.
“Six months of mortgage, rates and insurance, just sitting empty,” he feared.
The Minns Labor Government released an 18 page first year analysis after banning no-grounds evictions amid greater protections for renters. The legislation also limited rent increases to once a year and made it easier to have pets.
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Anoulack Chanthivong said the reforms provided “genuine choice for renters”. Picture: Sarah Wilson
The government claims the new rental reform laws have a strong compliance rate having spent $8.4m to establish the NSW Rental Taskforce to analyse activities within the rental market and “conduct compliance activities such as inspections, audits, and blitzes to prevent and act on breaches of the law.”
The analysis claims investor activity and confidence in the state’s rental market remains strong.
The report, which periodically adopts the woke push to call landlords and investors “property providers,” does not specifically reference the impact of the landlord re-letting exclusion period.
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“The number of rental properties in NSW is steady, rebutting the false claims that investors would be deterred from investing in NSW,” the report advised.
As of March 2026, two months before the controversial federal budget, “there is no evidence of a contraction in the rental market, with more bond lodgements (approx. 499,000) than refunds (approx. 466,000) since October 2024.”
The analysis suggested that renters are enjoying greater security and staying in their homes for longer with tenancies of five years or more rising by 5 per cent to 20.4 per cent of the market share, matching the traditionally dominant one-to-two-year tenure group.
“These ongoing reforms reflect the Minns Government’s determination to create a rental sector that offers security, quality, and genuine choice for renters, while providing certainty and viability for property providers,” Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading Anoulack Chanthivong said.
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