Given the drastic nature of the government’s Housing Package, it is hardly a surprise to see rental (un)affordability being thrust into the forefront of our national psyche.
In the immediate aftermath of the 23rd March announcement, social media was ablaze with talks of a wholesale rent spike. Uncertainty and fear dominated the moment.
And trigger-happy-finger-tapping housing market stakeholders (landlords, tenants, first home buyers, homeowners, industry professional) simply reacted.
Should they have right there and right then? Maybe, maybe not. Was it human to though? Absolutely. Are these comments precursors to what is to come?
No, not if history is anything to go by.
The media, not content with sitting idly by, took a big bite out of that juicy sensationalism pie, cherry-picked and held up the most inflammatory rent
increase posts as some kind of landlord manifesto. A real modern-day Nostradamus it is. Sure, Facebook is where we all go for unfiltered truth. Jacinda
seemed unperturbed. Grant shrugged and told tenants to look elsewhere. Opinion columnists eager to position themselves as ‘one of the good ones’ went
full #HolierThanThou by decrying the moral decrepitude of any landlord who dares to even contemplate a rent hike as if economic imperative is never a factor of rental ownership.
All the ingredients are in place to ignite talks of rent control, someone just needs to light a match.
And light it Renters United definitely will come Sunday when it launches its poster campaign:
The visual is, without a doubt, a powerful indictment of the state of renting in New Zealand. Anyone with half a heart...
