Western Australia’s highest residential vacancy rate in decades has turned the state into a hot spot heaven for squatters.
Squatters are finding home in some of the tens of thousand vacant properties sitting idle in WA. Some are changing the locks and threatening landlords. Others are conducting their own renovations and painting walls.
Sharon Fox-Slater, executive general manager of EBM RentCover, one of Australia’s largest providers of landlord insurance said that she use to see a squatting related claim every few years, but they are now common place in Western Australia.
“The downturn, high vacancy rate and number of job losses is taking its toll.” she said.
» Perth’s high rental vacancy rate has resulted in rise in squatters – Herald Sun, 20th June 2016.
i bet landlords who cant find tenants or cant find a buyer are biting their fingernailas
Another demographic group. “Getting established on the Property Ladder” ha ha
In the USA after the housing bust, the foreclosure backlog was so vast that squatting became a national pastime it seemed. Get ready for more “Unintended consequences” down under as the great Australian (government approved) property bubble bursts.
The next step will be people squatting in their own homes, unable to pay the mortgage as banks put off mortgagee sales for fear of crashing the markets. The government will then start “Helicopter Money” to stabilise the housing markets and save the banks. This will work for a short time until hyper-inflation sets in and the dollar becomes worthless. Its called Zimbabwe economics, thanks to our crony monopolistic banking system.
Shocked…… I am sure the real estate industry can put spin on it. ‘Maybe we have hit the bottom of the cycle’.
And poor people are still buying into these property schemes on 30 year mortgages.
Down she goes, IMO the bubble is still a while away from bursting in WA. Give it another 12 months and the real carnage will begin.
@ Max D Leverage
Almost happening to some extent.. The 60 Minutes story earlier this year with the girl and others who had properties in Moranbah but were not paying anything towards the interest on the loans for months on end, the banks had not foreclosed or forced any of them into bankruptcy. But they were still living in their own homes (which were due to be repossessed by the banks) and they still had the keys to their empty speculation properties.
Yes I know of a couple who are bankrupt and have lived in their house for a couple of years now, they are waiting for the bank to ‘get around to them’ They have kept living normally and even still go on overseas holidays. Their neighbors probably don’t even know.