Kim MacDonald: Landlords, will you look back and regret the rent you charge?

Landlords, which side of history are you on?

Perth’s post-pandemic housing crisis is so severe it will probably go down in the history books, according to the Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre, so there is a good chance your future grandchildren will learn about it at school.

They may ask you about what it was like in those heady days, when the number of WA households in housing stress almost doubled over three years.

Your future grandchildren may one day quote the BCEC report showing an extra 694 rental properties came onboard in the same period the State grew by an extra 119,000 people.

Perhaps they will cite the 76 per cent rental hike over five years, and ask what you did as a landlord.

Will you tell them that you were happy to spread the good fortune from your ample capital gains over the period by keeping rents moderate? Will you say increases were measured and compassionate?

Or will you tell them you exploited the desperation of Perth’s most vulnerable people, by hiking the rent to the max, helping you to upgrade the jeep and hightail it to Bali twice a year?

I recently learned of one particular landlord who rents out his 40 to 50-year-old, two-bedroom apartment, set on one of Perth’s busiest streets, for $900 a week. It is overpriced by 25 to 30 per cent.

The tenant was initially a young lady in her early 20s who signed on for the exorbitantly overpriced rental at some point in the two year period when the vacancy rate was one per cent.

After she fell gravely ill last year and could no longer work, her parents moved in to look after her and pay the rent.

The pair spend most of their week in back-breaking labour — despite their own health issues — just to pay the rent.

The thought of breaking the fixed-term rental contract, which has another nine months to run, had not even occurred to them because they would not dream of not keeping their end of a deal.

To be fair, their landlord is not doing anything illegal, but the rent he is charging is immoral.

If he ever looks back on his actions, he probably won’t be proud of them.

I can guarantee his grandchildren won’t be.