Weekly economic update - 21 July
Pet-friendly?rentals?a?rarity
William Clark, Ray White economics team
The COVID-19 pandemic meant many of us were spending more time at home, isolating ourselves from friends and family in our homes. For homeowners, having a?pet?was a readily accessible source of comfort during a potentially lonely time. This weekly update, we look at the state-of-play in?pet-friendly?listings, where a landlord explicitly states intent to grant permission for a potential tenant.
Sydney leads the way for?pet-friendly?listings, though the size of the market and the meaningfulness of a phrase like ‘pet-friendly’ in a listing is highest in New South Wales. A landlord in New South Wales is under no obligation to grant permission to tenants who wish to have a?pet?living in the property, and tenants are required to submit a request to landlords to have one residing with them.?
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This is also the case with Perth and South Australia, whose lower?pet-friendly?listings reflect the smaller markets. Northern Territory similarly allows landlords to choose whether pets reside with their tenants, but must reply to a tenants letter of intent to house a?pet?within 14 days of notification to reject the?pet.
Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and ACT do not grant landlords automatic right to refuse pets on their property, and rejecting a?pet?application requires a department-approved reason to do so. This explains their lower numbers for?pet-friendly?listings, as it is the default state of a rental listing to grant this permission upon application. In all states, it is still necessary to apply for a?pet. Will this change in the future?
We can also see that for the most part, suburbs have a relatively flat and short distribution of properties, with?pet-friendly?listings being a?rarity. As access to pets becomes easier, there is a good chance that these expressions of permission for pets appear more frequently, as giving this permission is likely to attract a larger pool of prospective tenants.?
Suburbs with high concentrations of apartments like Macquarie Park and Belconnen stand out, as landlords with more than one unit in a block may employ one agent for all apartments and use the same listing for the units in that apartment. Northcote is a clear outlier, and is an example of a leader in frequent granting of early permission to tenants.