Woman leaves Britain and exposes Australia’s grim housing crisis – realestate.com.au

British tourists pursuing the Australian beach dream touted on social media are facing a harsh reality: a nationwide housing crisis is excluding them from places to live and work.

More and more British expats who have made the jump to Australia on a holiday visa are lamenting the fierce competition in the rental market, which means they have to pay more than in London, and only if they manage to successfully get offered a house among the hundreds of people fighting for every listing.

British fashion marketing assistant Holly Beddall has documented her own struggle to break into the Australian jobs and rental market for her 25,000 followers on TikTok. The Telegraaf reports this.

“People think moving to Australia is easy, but Sydney’s rental crisis is no joke,” she said.

The 22-year-old, whose online listings at faltmates.com.au show her looking for a place around Bondi and Bellvue Hill – some of Australia’s most expensive and competitive rental markets, revealed she eventually found a room in Bondi for $580 a week after a 12-month search through hostels and friends’ homes.

Holly Beddall thought she would have to leave Sydney because she couldn’t find a place to live.

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Ms Beddall said she believed she only entered her home because she shared friends with the previous tenant.

At one point, Ms Beddall said she missed so many shifts attending apartment viewings that she thought she would have to leave Sydney altogether.

Unfortunately, Ms Beddall’s story is not an isolated one for tourists or Australians trying to find a place to live.

Australia’s rental market continues to tighten, with several suburbs recording double-digit rental price growth in just three months, further increasing pressure on housing and living costs.

The latest rental figures from PropTrack show a recalibration in the market, but affordability issues remain as vacancy rates remain historically low.

In Sydney’s affluent Woollahra, rents rose 12.1 per cent, from $1650 to $1850 per week.

REA Group senior economist Eleanor Creagh noted that while rents have fallen, rents remain high after years of record increases.

“Without a greater supply response, we are unlikely to see rents decline,” she says.

Not enough new homes are being built across Australia to alleviate the housing crisis.

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The National Housing Agreement aims to build 1.2 million homes between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2029 in an effort to tackle the housing shortage and rising house and rental prices.

But Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows there were just 186,000 new home approvals nationwide in the 2024-2025 financial year, the first 12 months of the Accord’s timeline. To reach the target of 1.2 million homes, the country needed to build 240,000 per year.

While the lack of new homes being built is certainly having an impact on tight rental markets, the influx of migrants like Ms Beddall is adding further fuel to an already inflamed sector.

Migration inflows into Australia exploded in 2025, doubling pre-pandemic levels, prompting new warnings that it is driving up house prices and rents, straining services and deepening the country’s economic strain.

ABS figures from September showed there were 110,062 new arrivals in the March quarter – the equivalent of 1,223 people a day and almost 500,000 a year.

Migration was responsible for three quarters of population growth, the ABS figures revealed.

Inflows in the March quarter were double the pre-pandemic quarterly average of 55,036 recorded between March 2010 and March 2020.

The number of migrations in Australia is increasing explosively. Source: IPA, ABS data

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Critics warn the influx is overwhelming housing supply, worsening rental shortages and fueling record property prices, while also putting unsustainable pressure on infrastructure and public services.

The Institute of Public Affairs claimed the wave, which was greenlit by the Albanian government, had destroyed the dream of home ownership and made mainstream Australians ‘poorer’.

The think tank’s deputy director Daniel Wild said migration had fallen below previous peak levels but remained well above historical patterns and pre-pandemic volumes.

“The increased level of migration is no longer a catch-up after the pandemic,” he said.

“It’s the new normal under the Albanian government. It’s something Australia simply can’t afford – because housing, infrastructure and services can’t keep up.”

Housing experts said the primary impact of migration on the housing market was on rental prices, but there was also flooding into the owner-occupied market.