Andrea Ferris is a single mum of three kids Taj 11, Ayla 10 and Noah 4 who is in a rental property which has just been sold. She says she can’t afford to rent anything in her suburb or surrounding suburbs as prices keep going up and is thinking of moving her family to New Zealand when her lease is up unless the local market changes drastically.
GOLD Coast mum Andrea Ferris is fed up.
It’s the third time in as many years she has been forced to pack up her family and battle the city’s increasingly bleak rental landscape to secure a new home.
With the end of her lease looming after the landlord sold the three-bedroom Oxenford house, Ms Ferris is considering quitting Queensland for good and moving her three children to New Zealand, where they have family support.
“I can’t seem to afford anything in this suburb or the surrounding suburbs,” said the registered nurse.
Ms Ferris has taken on extra work to cover rising costs
The fast-growing northern suburb of Oxenford is one of the Gold Coast’s more affordable markets, with weekly rent sitting at $680.
But that figure has surged by 10 per cent since last year, and families already stretched by the rising cost of living are forced to fork out more every time they sign a new lease.
Vacancy rates in the suburb plunged again to 0.5 per cent in March, SQM Research data shows.
“I get that interest rates are going up, but as a solo parent it’s not going to be easy,” Ms Ferris, 43, said.
“The lease isn’t up till June. I’m really hoping the market drastically changes by then or we will pack up and go back to New Zealand.”
Oxenford is one of the Coast’s more affordable areas but rents have still soared
Her current rental was last listed for $570 a week in June 2022. She had been paying $480 a week for their previous home in the same suburb last year, but that property was sold to an owner-occupier.
The situation was unfortunately familiar, as the landlord of the house they rented in 2020 also sold when Covid hit.
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“The young family who owns this place feels terrible about having to sell, but I completely understand,” Ms Ferris said.
“Having a mortgage on their own property and trying to keep an investment was causing them distress.”
Oxenford homes for rent
Ms Ferris had lost count of the applications made for every possible listing, and said the stress of the months-long search affected her mental health and the wellbeing of her primary school-aged kids.
She had owned a house with her former partner but had rented on the northern Gold Coast since they split and maintained an “impeccable tenant history”.
The post Rental family pushed out as living cost crisis forces landlord to sell appeared first on realestate.com.au.