FoundIt’s Kent Lardner has projected more pain for renters
Queensland renters are set to be slammed with price hikes up to nine times higher than the federal government’s modelling, exposing the Treasury’s estimate of a mere $2 rent rise as “pure fantasy”.
A damning new rental forecast from property data firm FoundIt reveals controversial tax overhauls restricting negative gearing will trigger a “perfect storm” for tenants already stretched to breaking point.
While the government claimed the reforms would add just couple of dollars to weekly rents, FoundIt’s capital-city forecast shows a grim reality for 39 sub-regions across Greater Brisbane.
FoundIt research director Kent Lardner: No good news
In Brisbane’s inner west, tenants face a brutal $18 weekly hike over the next three months alone, while markets like Kenmore, Brookfield, and Moggill, along with Brisbane inner east, are bracing for $17 jumps.
“We went looking for the good-news story. No matter how we unpack the data, it isn’t there,” FoundIt head of research Kent Lardner said.
“Every one of the 183 capital-city house markets is forecast to rise. Not one comes in under $2 a week.”
The report noted the mean capital-city forecast was $12 to $13 a week across the next three months, based on a conservative projection of recent market momentum even before the full effect of the budget was felt.
One-bedroom cottage at New Farm listed to rent at $375
FoundIt’s drift model, which carries each market’s recent rate of change forward, shows upward pressure was in place well before the feared tax changes dropped.
“These reforms will squeeze the very people it’s supposed to help,” Mr Lardner said, adding price hikes would make it harder for tenants to save deposits to get off the rent rollercoaster for good.
“Most of the markets where rents are going up the fastest are affordable markets. There is a huge concentration of people competing for cheaper units.”
The price shock was widespread across the southeast. Rents in Carindale, Sherwood, Indooroopilly, and Brisbane’s Inner North were all forecast to be hit with $16-a-week hikes, and $13 for houses in Jimboomba, Springwood, and Bribie Island along with units in the inner city and out to Kenmore.
Four-bedroom home at Carindale listed to rent at $950 a week
FoundIt said the figures masked an even deeper affordability crisis.
“Median-income households are increasingly not in the house rental market at all,” the report noted.
“The median is a floor, not a typical renter’s experience. Houses are stepping out of reach for the median household entirely and on current trajectory that only gets worse.”
The report found Queenslanders were bearing the brunt of a “perfect storm”, as surging overseas arrivals outpaced new dwelling completions, while interest-rate rises since 2025 have pushed investors to cover their costs or sell up.
The latest Market Insight report from realestate.com.au also sounded the alarm bells for renters on the back of the government’s tax overhaul.
REA Group senior economist Angus Moore
“By restricting negative gearing and the capital gains discount to new builds, new rental supply may not be added where it is needed most,” REA Group senior economist Angus Moore said.
“This could see more rental accommodation added in outer growth areas that are further from jobs, universities, and other amenities renters typically look for.”
As investors abandon existing homes in established suburbs, the drop in supply would lead to another jump in prices.
With one-third of Aussies on the rental rollercoaster and the national vacancy rate at 1.36 per cent in April, Mr Moore said the crisis had already “driven rental affordability to its worst level seen since at least 2008”
Four-bedroom home at Bardon listed to rent at $1,250
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“These changes come at a time of extremely challenging rental market conditions,” Mr Moore stated.
“The effect on rental market conditions, and therefore rents, could be disproportionate.”
Buyer’s agent Rohit Gehlot of InvestorAid slammed the changes as a blatant tax grab masquerading as reform.
He said grandfathering negative gearing benefits for existing investments would effectively paralyse the market.
Investors won’t sell knowing they will lose their tax perks if they upgrade or buy elsewhere, while any rental properties that do hit the market will likely be snapped up by owner-occupiers taking advantage of government incentives, wiping them from the rental pool entirely.
Rohit Gehlot of InvestorAid
“Reduced rental stock in a market where many cities have a rental crisis – this is going to be a supply shock pushing rental prices even further,” Mr Gehlot said.
He compared the current reforms to the disastrous 1985 scrapping of negative gearing, which the government hastily reversed two years later as rents skyrocketed.
“In 1985… we didn’t have such a big imbalance between demand and supply for rentals as we have today,” he said.
“This is actually just a tax grab without thinking about the people who voted for them. It doesn’t benefit anyone.”
* Additional reporting by Aidan Devine
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