Vic government faces corruption claim over delayed rental reports – for herald sun real estate
The Victorian government is under fire after a series of three quarterly rental reports were all published last Thursday, most of them months later than expected.
The reports reveal damning residential tenancy bonds data showing a continued landlord exodus wiped almost 6000 homes in a 0.9 per cent decline in the number of active rentals across 2025.
It also shows that while in the year to March the number of rental homes active in the state increased by 2000 (0.3 per cent), that growth was entirely reversed in the June data — a potential early warning signal the Albanese government’s investor tax law changes could be impacting the state’s supply of housing available for lease.
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Industry groups are now questioning if the delayed reports were incompetence or sinister, with Empower Wealth boss Ben Kingsley, former Property Investor Council of Australia chair, revealing he had not been informed when the data was released despite multiple requests to the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing to access it and to explain its delay.
The report is collated by the DFFH and Homes Victoria.
Mr Kingsley said the hold up in releasing the data went to the state government’s reputation, with many Victorians having made investment and employment decisions that would have been better informed with the rental report’s material available.
“I hope they aren’t incompetent and there’s no sinister element to this, but it smells a lot,” he said.
“It also highlights that this data was a bad look for the Victorian state government.
“And by delaying it you can’t help but think there’s some sinister motivation in terms of protecting the Labour government from further bad press as they have effectively cooked the residential property market in the state of Victoria.”
Where the most rental homes are across Melbourne, according to the Victorian Rental Report for June 2026.
Where the most rental homes are across the rest of Victoria, according to the Victorian Rental Report, June 2026.
He added that while the federal government’s May budget would also play into the more recent data, it was a stronger reflection that their warnings to the Victorian government of bad outcomes for renters from rental reforms in the state were coming true.
“The only way for rents from here is up. And the government has only got themselves to blame.”
Mr Kingsley warned that without significant efforts to reverse reforms or encourage investment, the situation would continue to worsen.
Real Estate Institute of Victoria chief executive Toby Balazs said the timing of the release was “disappointing” given it reflected nine months of information being published in the span of a week.
“This is important data that shows there is no private rental provider or investor confidence and their reluctance to invest as well as renters ability to find properties at an affordable rate,” Mr Balazs said.
“This once again shows the disincentive that exists within the Victorian property sector for suitable rental properties to be made available within the rental pool.”
Median rents across Victoria by property type, according to the Victorian Rental Report for June 2026.
Empower Wealth founder and former PICA chair Ben Kingsley believes the delay in releasing the report “smells”.
With an estimated 664,663 rental bonds active in the latest report, losses have been heavily concentrated in some of Melbourne’s most desirable municipalities, with at least 1000 fewer homes tenanted in Boroondara and Yarra today than there were a year ago.
Renters hoping to get more choice are increasingly being pushed to new housing hubs including apartments in the CBD, where there was a modest, 0.5 per cent increase, in the number of rentals to 63,185.
It’s also sending them to the city’s outer suburban councils like Hume, which surged 7.5 per cent to 20,155, Melton where a 7.8 per cent uptick pushed rental home numbers beyond 25,000 and Wyndham where a hefty 33,337 renters now call home after a 1600 (5.1 per cent) increase.
Mr Balazs said it was information like this that would now not be acted on until a new government was formed, anywhere from six to nine months after some of the earlier reports could have been used to inform government decisions.
He added that the brief improvement in rental numbers in March before a June drop off wiped out those gains was very likely a reflection that investors had been coming back into the market responding to the comparably good value Melbourne offered to other capital cities, but that they had stopped doing so after the federal government’s May budget changes to investor taxes.
Median rents across Victoria by region, according to the Victorian Rental Report for June 2026.
REIV chief executive Toby Balazs says the timing of the reports’ release will mean no action can realistically be taken on concerning data found within them until 2027.
Property Investment Professionals of Australia chair Cate Bakos said the timing of the data’s release raised questions over why it had been delayed for so long and could be a sign “there was something they would have liked to hide”.
“It really feels sneaky,” Ms Bakos said.
The buyer’s agent added that the reports’ grim numbers for residential tenancies reflected that the state government had done “a really good job of disenfranchising landlords”.
“We have had numerous rental reforms and increased costs with compliance related changes, not to mention significant costs with interest rate rises,” Ms Bakos said.
“And the data is also telling you that investment properties are being sold, but not to investors.”
Ms Bakos said with the rate of rental price growth slowing down, despite vacancy rates remaining lower than optimum levels for a balanced market, the reality was that more tenants were going into sharehouse arrangements.
“Property managers are all saying that subletting is increasing, or there are multiple names on a lease,” she said.
What to expect to pay for renting a two-bedroom unit across Melbourne, according to the Victorian Rental Report for June 2026.
What to expect from rental costs on a median-priced three-bedroom house across Melbourne, according to the Victorian Rental Report for June 2026.
The latest report, covering the 12 months to June, shows the 48,271 residences that were part of new lettings had recorded a 7.6 per cent decline from a year ago — and 8.5 per cent for Melbourne, which accounted for more than four in every five rentals.
Turnover in rentals was also down, and the average length of a tenancy was recorded at 23 months.
The report shows that Victorian households borrowed $8.164bn in the June quarter to pay for residential housing investment.
Melbourne’s vacancy rate rose from 2.5 per cent a year ago to 2.6 per cent, and the median rent for Melbourne fell by $5 to $595 a week, but rose $10 to $495 a week across the rest of the state.
However, the Rental Report indicated that there was a 4.8 per cent rise in the state’s rent indices — which accounts for variations in the types and locations of homes being rented, and shows renting a home became more challenging in the past year.
A landlord exodus has been putting Victorian renters under increasing strain as the number of homes available for lease decline in the aftermath of increases in rental regulations and costs.
It also found that there were just 234 Melbourne homes that a single Victorian receiving an aged or disability pension could have afforded, and only 76 those on JobSeeker could afford.
A single parent on a parenting payment with one child could only have covered rent at an affordable level for 207 homes in Melbourne, and 378 in regional Victoria.
The Victorian government has been contacted for comment.
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