Woman quits UK, exposes grim housing crisis in Australia

Holly Beddall is struggling to make life work in Australia.

British tourists pursuing the Australian beach dream touted on social media are confronting a harsh reality – a nationwide housing crisis is shutting them out of places to live and work.

More and more British expats who made the leap to Australia on holiday visas are lamenting the intense competition in the rental market that is seeing them pay more than they were in London and that’s only if they manage to successfully be offered a home among the hundred-plus people fighting for every listing.

UK fashion marketing assistant Holly Beddall has been documenting her own struggles to break into the Australian jobs and rental market for her 25,000 followers on TikTok, The Telegraph reports.

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

The 22-year-old, whose online listings on faltmates.com.au show she is hunting 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 per week after a 12-month struggle through hostels and friends’ homes.

Holly Beddall thought she would need to leave Sydney because she couldn’t find somewhere to live.

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

At one point, Ms Beddall said she was missing so many work shifts to attend apartment viewings she thought she would need to leave Sydney altogether.

Unfortunately, Ms Beddall’s story isn’t an isolated one for tourists or Aussies trying to secure a place to live.

Australia’s rental market continues to tighten, with several suburbs recording double-digit rent price growth in just three months, further exacerbating housing and cost-of-living pressures.

Latest PropTrack rental figures reveal a recalibration in the market, but affordability challenges persist as vacancy rates remain historically low.

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

REA Group senior economist Eleanor Creagh noted that while rental price growth has eased, rents remain elevated after years of record increases.

“Without a bigger supply response, it’s not likely that we’ll see rents moving backwards,” she said.

There aren’t enough new homes being built across Australia to alleviate the housing crisis.

The National Housing Accord aims to build 1.2 million homes between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2029 in a bid to address accommodation shortages and spiralling home and rental prices.

But Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows there were just 186,000 approvals for new homes across the country in the 2024-2025 financial year, the first 12 months of the Accord’s timeline. To hit the 1.2 million homes target the country needed to achieve 240,000 a year.

While the lack of new residential properties being built is definitely impacting tight rental markets, the influx of migrants like Ms Beddall is adding further fuel to an already inflamed sector.

Australia’s migration intake exploded in 2025 to double pre-pandemic levels in, sparking fresh warnings it is driving up house prices and rents, straining services and deepening the nation’s economic squeeze.

ABS figures in September showed there were 110,062 new arrivals over the March quarter – the equivalent of 1223 people every single day and almost 500,000 per year.

Migration accounted for three-quarters of population growth, the ABS figures revealed.

Intake over the March quarter was double the pre-pandemic quarterly average of 55,036 recorded from March 2010 to March 2020.

Migration numbers are booming in Australia. Source: IPA, ABS data

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

The Institute of Public Affairs claimed the surge, green-lit by the Albanese Government, had destroyed the dream of home ownership and left mainstream Australians “poorer”.

The think tank’s deputy executive director Daniel Wild said migration had dropped below earlier peak levels but remained well above historic patterns and pre-pandemic volumes.

“The elevated level of migration is no longer a post-pandemic catch up,” he said.

“It’s the new normal under the Albanese government. It is something that Australia simply cannot afford – with housing, infrastructure, and services unable to keep up.”

Housing experts said the primary impact of migration on the housing market was on rents, but there was overflow into the buying market as well.

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