Sunshine Coast Daily 15/02/2012: Coast in top 5 for home stress

The Sunshine Coast is one of the five top housing stressed council in Queensland, according to new figures released this week.

Australians for Affordable Housing (AAH) revealed the extent of housing stress across Queensland with Gympie topping the list. 

New modelling commissioned by AAH also shows that more than 55,000 households in Brisbane Council are in housing stress. Those in the rental market are doing it hardest with 28 per cent of households in rental stress.

While the rate of rent stress in Brisbane was 28%t, in Gympie it was 45%, the Gold Coast was 38% and Sunshine Coast was 42%.

The rent stress in all the areas was much higher than the mortgage stress with Gympie at 27%, Gold Coast at 18% and Sunshine Coast at 21%.

"The high cost of housing in Queensland is not new, but these figures show where the pain is being felt," said AAH Campaign Manager Sarah Toohey.

"Households in Gympie, Fraser Coast, Gold Coast and Logan are suffering the most with 19% experiencing housing stress, while Fraser Coast has the highest proportion of people under rental stress (46%).

"Areas such as Fraser Coast, Gympie, Somerset and Bundaberg all have rates of rental stress over 43%, as well as high rates of mortgage stress with over 23% of home buyers in those areas under financial pressure.

The highest level of mortgage stress was recorded in Etheridge (31%).

"When low income households spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing costs they are officially in housing stress. This means they have very little left over to cover other costs like food, transport, bills or money for emergencies."

Adrian Pisarski, Executive Officer of Queensland Shelter said these figures were a wake up call to governments.

"People are obsessed with the housing stress on home owners, but these figures show that housing stress is most severe for renters. We seriously need to think about rental stress in solutions to affordable housing," said Mr Pisarski.

"Last week, AAH called on the Federal Government to commit to a long term strategy to improve housing affordability, at the launch of our budget statement in Canberra.

"We need the State and Federal Governments to work together to fund that strategy and deliver the housing system that Queensland needs," said Ms Toohey.

"Given that housing is the biggest cost of living issue for Queenslanders, we'd hope that all candidates in the upcoming election commit to policies that will improve housing affordability.

"Australians for Affordable Housing is urging Queensland residents in housing stress to join the campaign to convince governments to work together to address the housing crisis. More information can be found on our website www.housingstressed.org.au.

"We need action at all levels of government to ensure that we fix our broken housing system, and take the pressure off families struggling with high housing costs and lack of affordable options," said Ms Toohey.