With soaring increases and a tough rental market, it's easy to feel powerless as a tenant.
But it is still possible to negotiate a rent increase. Here's how these households did it.
All names have been changed for privacy, and rent prices made approximate.
Abbey, Gadigal land (Sydney)
- Initial rent increase: $150 per week
- Negotiated rent increase: $100 per week
Abbey, who's in her mid-20s, lives with three others in an inner-city terrace house.
"I always describe it as the house on the corner that's falling apart."
They moved in at the start of last year, paying around $900 a week in rent.
When their lease was up at the beginning of 2023, they were keen to resign, but expected there would be a rent hike.
But they were hit with a $150 weekly increase, bringing their rent to more than $1,000, which "didn't feel justified".
"I sent them an email basically saying that we feel $150 is a bit too steep given there's cracks inside and outside the house, we're pretty sure it's tipping to the side, and there's a giant hole in the ceiling that hasn't been fixed in a year or so."
While a piece of plywood had been screwed over said hole, Abbey added that these issues would likely need to be fixed properly to get a new tenant in.
Abbey also has a friend a couple of streets down living in a similar place, and their rent was only raised by $75, so she mentioned that in her email too.
They requested the increase be $100 instead, which the agents and landlord agreed to straight away: "So I do wish I'd haggled a bit more."
"I think my advice for others is just to at least try to negotiate it. They can't kick you out for trying, and there's not much to lose — but a lot to be gained."
Ella, Meanjin (Brisbane)
- Initial rent increase: $150 per week
- Negotiated rent increase: $100 per week
Ella, who's in her late 20s, lives with her partner and two other housemates in a "pretty small" post-war house.
"It's kind of as tight as it can get, but we've got a dishwasher."
Ella's lived there since 2019, with various issues during that time.
"We've had leaking gutters for about a year and a half, which caused flooding in the backyard. We've also got concerns that there's asbestos.
"If stuff gets fixed, it's the landlord's friend who comes around for it, and doesn't do it terribly well."
They were originally paying around $600 a week in rent, before being hit with a proposed increase that brought it to approximately $750 last year.
"We were all instantly like: 'That's too much. We can't afford to stay.'
"I just went into an anxious mess. I love the house, I love the location and all of my community is in the area."
After chatting amongst themselves, they decided on a price they felt they could manage — around $700 a week.
Then the math came in: They worked out what the difference was annually between the proposed increase, and their counter-offer.
Then they turned that number into weeks of rent, and figured out the difference was around four weeks.
"When we wrote back, we highlighted that we've always paid rent on time and there's never been any issues with damages.
"We put forward our revised increase, and said: 'Look, this equates to four weeks of lost of rent, [whereas] there may be a period of vacancy if we do leave.'"
Ella says they were careful not to "over-explain it" but figured the agent might also charge the landlord property fees for switching tenants.
"Basically, I was just trying to make it seem like, financially, there wasn't that much of a difference for them, but that it would make a big difference for us."
While she isn't sure if this strategy would work as well when they're set to renew again this year, given the current demand for rental properties, she still recommends others try to negotiate, and talk up your own history.
"Landlords see us as a risk to their investment, so if you can make yourself seem like the least risk, I think that can be helpful."
Chelsea, Naarm (Melbourne)
- Initial rent increase: $110 per week
- Negotiated rent increase: $80 per week
Chelsea, who's in her early 30s, shares her "classic old weatherboard house" with two others.
"It's not the worst rental I've lived in. I've lived in a house that had a beehive in the wall that they couldn't remove. And I got stung by bees all the time.
"But like most Melbourne houses, it has like no insulation, the roof's a bit leaky and the oven hasn't worked in a month and a half."
They first moved in during COVID, paying around $810 a week.
Their lease renews in August, and they received notice of an increase a few months ago, bringing it to approximately $920 a week.
Her agent sent through some examples of similar houses and their current rental prices.
But given they were new, renovated properties, Chelsea wrote back and highlighted that they weren't on the same level as their rental.
"[I said] if you want to increase the rent by that much, I'd ask that you do renovations to the kitchen and bathroom to bring it up to the level of the houses in those photos.
"If you don't want to do any maintenance, then I would say it's much fairer to bring that price a lot further down."
After some emailing back and forth, the agent came back with an increase of around $890 a week instead.
Chelsea's hoping to keep negotiating to get a little lower than that, but is closely watching updates around the Federal Housing Bill, in case that helps her situation.
"My concern was always that the landlords would retaliate.
"You want to push them about maintenance or smaller increases, but tenants aren't the ones in positions of power right now.
"But everything's been fine, so my advice to people who are dealing with a rent increase is at least to try."
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