“Sorry, Your Rental Application Has Been Unsuccessful”

If I am unable to find a rental, I cannot imagine the hopelessness for someone experiencing homelessness, violence or financial instability.

My partner and I, both 22 years old, are currently in the desperate search for a rental property. We are financially stable and viable with consistent, sustained income, and have at least three years of perfect rental history with great references.

We finally found a property within our price range and were the only people that presented at the inspection and placed an application. Despite the seeming lack of competition, the real estate agent warned us that “we should think about how much we want it,” and that we could expect “unforeseen competition.” The estate agent also stated that “landlords don’t always see young students as very viable.” To overcome the unfavourable nature of our age, we were being encouraged to offer more weekly rent to secure the property, so along with our application we submitted a higher offer. After a week and a half with no contact from the real estate, I presented to their office and asked when I should expect a response and reiterated our interest. We were told by the receptionist, “if you continue to nag the agent you may make yourself not a preferred tenant.”

Yet, the receptionist could confirm we were still the only people that had applied, so I could not understand why we weren’t being seen as viable tenants.

Initially, the estate agent told us we could expect a response within three business days, but after two and a half weeks we still had not heard anything. The property was still listed online and sitting empty, no one was turning up to the weekly advertised inspections, and the receptionist repeatedly confirmed we were the only people that had applied.

After three weeks of waiting to hear back, I had been trying to call and email the estate agent with no response. At this point, I just wanted our application to be formally declined so it wasn’t deterring us from being successful in our other rental applications, because we’re required to declare to other agents that we have an application pending.

Finally, after four weeks, we noticed that the online property listing had been removed. We had still not had our application declined nor any contact from the estate agent. However, the next day, the same property we had already applied for was listed again labelled as a “Brand New Rental”, with a reduced weekly asking price. 

My frustration was palpable. My partner and I were more than suitable tenants willing to offer more for the property, yet we couldn’t even get a response. Four and a half weeks after our application was submitted, it was finally declined. But I believe our age was a primary discriminator. The agent had made it clear when I applied that university students, young people, are not looked upon favourably by landlords. But our age should not be a determining factor. As a respectful, employed, educated, financially viable young person, too secure for community housing, yet too young to break into the private rental market, where am I supposed to go?

The treatment we received from the real estate agency was sadly not atypical but was downright unprofessional and discriminatory. Young people’s viability as tenants should be determined by holistic, determinable factors. I cannot control my age.

What Needs to Change

If I am unable to find a rental, as someone that is partnered, financially stable, and has a viable rental record, I cannot imagine the hopelessness of this process for a young person experiencing homelessness, family violence, or financial instability. The private rental market is highly unregulated, to the detriment of the security of my up-and-coming generation. There needs to be protections in the real estate market to reduce discrimination based on age.

In practice, I think this would look like tightening regulations around rental applications to reduce discrimination. A regulated application process would create consistency across real estates to eliminate agent bias when it comes to age. A state-wide standardised rental application form could limit the amount of information that could be legally requested from a tenant, reducing the potential for discrimination when assessing applications. 

Furthermore, the rental ‘bidding war’ should be disallowed entirely, with advertised prices the only acceptable rent. I believe the search for a rental is unnecessarily prolonged by allowing the practice of rent bidding, and clearly disadvantages low-income applicants, while those that do bid are used as leverage against other applicants. 

There also needs to be financial incentives in some form that encourage young people to be accepted into the private rental market. Without further regulation of real estates and the private rental market, young people will turn to the informal rental market despite its lack of protections, while some will face the very real possibility of homelessness.