A sign out the front of a suburban Melbourne home has exposed how competitive the rental market is, with the reaction showing just how furious and fed up Aussies are.
In the Melbourne suburb of Coburg, an estate agent placed a sign on a property letting the community know that not only had the home been leased, but it had been leased “for a record price” in the area.
The standard “Just Leased” sign is typically slapped on hot properties to show how quickly real estate agents have secured tenants for landlords, rather than boasting how much money those tenants are paying.
An Aussie snapped a photo of the “record price” sign and posted it on a popular real estate forum to vent.
“Is this something to be proud of in a housing crisis?” they asked.
The responses came pouring in with waves of upset Aussies noting high rental prices, of which the sign boasted, were nothing to be proud of. Many also took it as a sad reminder of how hard it is to crack the rental market in 2024.
“Who would be so proud of how much you just f***ed someone over that you wanted to put a huge sign out the front celebrating it,” one questioned.
“Imagine being the tenant with that sign out the front boasting you got the worst deal in the area,” another pointed out.
“Holy hell, we are living in a dystopia,” a third claimed.
Someone else noted the sign was “un-Australian” while others simply described it as “cooked”.
Others said they felt the sign was “rubbing it in” to the renters and “distasteful”.
The controversial sign also included the real estate agent’s headshot and contact number. News.com.au contacted the agent, but they declined to comment and said the sign would be removed because of the uproar.
A spokesperson for real estate agency PlantBarry told news.com.au that they are doing their best to support both renters and landlords.
“This is inner city property, it’s a premium property, and this is not where middle Australia are looking. We are trying to look after both parties as best we can in a difficult environment when there is significant financial pressure on each other.”
The property securing a record price isn’t surprising when you consider that Australia’s rental crisis is in full swing, with vacancy rates hitting record lows and rents soaring in response.
Tenants are now lining up around the block, hoping to secure a rental and data from PropTrack has revealed that Melbourne’s median rental price increased from $465 a week in December 2022 to $550 as of December 2023.
NSW real estate agent Mat Steinwede, who consistenly ranked as the number one agent in the McGrath Network, said he doubted the sign will be an “isolated” incident because the rental market is so hot at the moment.
“There’s such an over demand, and when you have that environment for properties for sale, we usually auction them,” he told news.com.au.
Mr Steinwede explained that he didn’t think we should start auctioning rentals, but he understood why the agent wanted to show off their good result.
“It is a really hard one; the agent’s there to maximise the outcome,” he said.
Still, Mr Steinwede also noted that it is a very “difficult” time being a tenant, and real estate agents needed to consider this before marketing their record-breaking wins.