@betterrenting.bsky.social
Better Renting is a community of renters working together for stable, affordable, and healthy homes. See our upcoming events, latest research, media, & renting news here: https://linktr.ee/BetterRentingAus
A huge thank-you to the @cityofsydney for supporting this research and to the renters who generously shared their data and experiences.
Read the full report: www.betterrenting.org.au/too_hot_to_b...
No renter paying for a home should be forced to leave it because it's too hot to sleep or perform basic daily activities. A home that reaches 40°C indoors does not provide adequate shelter. Renters deserve minimum standards that ensure homes can maintain safe & healthy temperatures in hot weather.
For many renters, the biggest impact wasn’t just discomfort, it was not being able to fully use their home and being forced to “escape” their own homes just so they could function or even just sleep. One renter described having to book into a hotel to sleep on days the temperature climbed above 40°C
📊Some of our key findings were:
Highest indoor temperature reached: 40.6°C
Median indoor temperature: 25.7°C
Average indoor heat index (including humidity): 26.6°C
71.4% of renters recorded indoor temperatures above 30°C
Two renters recorded temperatures above 40°C inside their homes
What we found is that apartment living creates unique heat risks: top-floor units, west-facing windows, concrete and brick walls, limited cross-ventilation and sealed windows mean heat gets trapped, and often stays trapped overnight.
🔥 Too Hot to Be Home 🔥
Today we’re releasing the first of this year's Renter Researchers reports, Too Hot to Be Home, looking at the experiences of renters in apartments and high-rise buildings across NSW.
Join our deputy CEO Bernie, @antipovertynetworksa, Adelaide Day Centre for Homeless Persons, Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council, and the Brian Burdekin Clinic at the Pilgrim Uniting Church to talk solutions.
Register at apn-sa.org/2025/12/10/h... or the link in our bio!
Any Adelaide-residents who are interested in solving the housing crisis are kindly invited to the SA State Election Forum next Wednesday!
@SwelteringCities is running an incredible slate of events for Extreme Heat Awareness Day. Head here to find an event in your city: swelteringcities.org/ehad/
Our own observations during the heatwave also showed renters' homes reaching higher temperatures than those of owner-occupiers. We need minimum standards that make sure renters and their families and children are cool, safe, and healthy.
Today is Extreme Heat Awareness Day. If you're a renter, it probably would be pretty hard not to be aware of the extreme heat you've been put through over the last few weeks. Research shows that renters' homes tend to be less energy-efficient.
Right now, Victoria is the only state with a minimum standard for cooling, and that doesn't even fully come into effect until 2027. We need to see more.
and because the minimum standards they're forced to rely on are, in many jurisdictions, extremely lax, they are left to suffer in homes that are dangerous during emergencies like this one.
The takeaway here is not that renters are the only people to suffer in a heatwave, but that because renters cannot control their homes—they can't simply choose to have aircon or better insulation installed, for example—
A huge thank-you to everyone who took part in our heatwave data collection last week: you all came through while you were suffering some truly unbelievable temperatures in your homes. Swipe through to see a cross-section of the results.
We're running a quick data sprint on how this heatwave is affecting renters: add your data point (whether you rent, own, or have any other housing status!) to help make renting healthier and safer.
Go to 🔗 bit.ly/heatwave-data to hop on board!
Southeast Australia is going to be dangerously hot today as our midsummer heatwave continues. Renters have less energy-efficient homes to begin with, and less control over how they can keep their homes cool.
As long as rent increases are completely unbridled and continue to outstrip the extremely modest increase in wages the average worker sees in a year, the permacrisis is getting worse, not slackening. Until we treat housing as something you don't have to "compete" for, this will continue.
Once again, we find ourselves asking: what do media outlets mean when they say rental pressures are easing? It certainly doesn't seem that way to renters, who are spending more on rent than ever before AND a larger percentage of their paycheck on rent than ever before.
🗓 Open now!
⏱ 5–10 mins
👉 Take the survey here: www.focuscreative.com.au/residential-...
Do you rent, own, or even manage an apartment in the City of Sydney?
Our friends at the City of Sydney want you to know you can help shape future sustainability programs in the City of Sydney LGA by completing their short survey!
To read more about why we think it's time for the CGT discount and negative gearing to go, check out our full submission at tr.ee/cqFGUUOchY
To be more specific, these rules incentivise the treatment of housing as foremost an investment vehicle, renters be damned, even though renters bear the brunt of the upheaval and costs when the investment can no longer be sustained. Everyone should live in a safe, heathy, affordable home.
We made a submission to the Senate Select Committee on the Operation of the Capital Gains Tax Discount, mostly just to say it's really bad and we should get rid of it. Negative gearing too.
If you have a story about using rent tech—paying your rent via a 3rd-party app, online applications, or having to use an app to contact your agent for repairs—CPRC would love to hear from you.
Fill out their 5-minute anonymous questionnaire at the link below!
cprc.limesurvey.net/594888?lang=en
Vic renters: the Consumer Policy Research Centre (CPRC) is conducting research on rent tech, and they need people who have rented in Vic to share their (good or bad) rent tech experiences.
(And if you are looking for a festive holiday movie that's renter-relevant to watch over the break, allow us to suggest It's a Wonderful Life ✨)
We're out! Better Renting is out-of-office until 6 January, and then back in with just a skeleton crew until 19 January. We hope you have peaceful, safe, relaxing, and bad-landlord-free holiday season & a bright shiny new year.
We made a submission to the consultation to try and make that happen—you can read it in full here: www.betterrenting.org.au/solar-sharers
The proposal includes a Solar Sharer Offer, which would provide households with a defined daily window of zero-cost electricity usage generated by solar power.
Will renters get anything out of this? Only if their needs are explicitly considered in the reform's design.