International Students ‘Not to Blame for Rental Crisis’

International students make up just 4 per cent of Australia’s rental market and are not to blame for the housing crisis.

According to a report by the Student Accommodation Council, the rise of smaller and solo-person households, intrastate migration, and a trend to repurposing second bedrooms into home offices were all impacting the supply and affordability of rental homes across the country.

“While international students have returned to Australia post-Covid, the increase in rents do not align with their return,” the report found.

“In fact, rents began rising in 2020, when there was no international student migration and most students had returned home.

“Between 2019 and 2023, median weekly rent increased by 30 per cent. Duirng the same period, student visa arrivals decreased by 13 per cent.”

The report said the current pipeline of new purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) developments would not meet future needs, with the projected 7770 new beds due to come online by 2026 not enough to alleviate demand in the private rental market.

“International students have been unfairly blamed for the rental crisis, yet this report shows that long-term structural issues in Australia’s housing market are the real cause for rental pressures,” Student Accommodation Council executive director Torie Brown said.

“There are more domestic students in rental homes than international, yet no one is suggesting we ban sharehouses for local university students.

“We need to look at the broad spectrum of issues driving up rent and reducing the supply of homes, rather than blaming a single cohort.”

Brown said new student accommodation assets were built at the current rate, only an extra 1 per cent of international students would be forced into the private rental market.

▲ Student Accommodation Council executive director Torie Brown, and Anouk Darling, chair of the Student Accommodation Council.

“We need the pipeline of PBSA projects to add 66,000 new beds to the market by 2026 to maintain the proportion of international students living in our buildings rather than the private market,” she said.

Anouk Darling, chair of the Student Accommodation Council and chief executive of Scape said the will to develop new PBSA buildings was there but it’s a drawnout and expensive process to bring a project to completion.

“The difficulties faced by the sector include slow planning systems, high property taxes and clunky state-based legislation,” she said.

“International students contribute $25.5 billion to the Australian economy, and they deserve the best housing experience when they arrive in our country.

“We need governments to work with us to grow the supply of professionally managed, custom built and safe student accommodation which alleviate pressure on the private  rental market.”