There’s a new narrative emerging in the mainstream – but is it just another way of living or does its sudden emergence signal something slightly more sinister?
Disguised in a long list of reporting on the ‘crises’ relating to housing and rental availability, rising inflation, and the increasing challenges of home ownership, a revival of the ‘rent for life’ scheme is about to hit the Melbourne accommodation market.
The concept is said to have come to fruition due to recent Australian government land tax changes.
According to a report on 7News,
“A new kind of rental property is about to hit the market offering tenants a place to call home without committing to a lifetime of debt.”
The first build to rent development ‘Home Southbank’ about to open in Melbourne, is being promoted as a communal and much more luxurious way of living.
The fifty-nine-story building is owned and leased directly by unnamed developers, and according to Christian Grahame from Head of Home, it was designed and built exclusively for renters to enjoy a hotel-inspired lifestyle.
It is reported that there are at least 25 more of these ‘rent for life’ facilities currently being built or about to commence operating. While the locations of these are not yet publicly disclosed, reports from Penrith residents in New South Wales indicate a high-rise project of this type is under construction on station street. An emblazoned banner attached to the construction site reads; “Rooms for rent – shared living areas.”
Danni Hunter of Property Council of Australia told the news outlet,
“Build to rent is an exciting new asset class that is delivering rental products to consumers in a way that’s never been done before,” Hunter said the scheme was aimed at people who were not in a position to buy their own home or who just want better security with higher amenities.
Further enticements include a communal gym and swimming pool, shared dining facilities, a penthouse-style communal office space, and a 24-hour concierge service.
Rent is said to range from $600 to $1600 per week. It is unclear what the apartment’s internal features are, such as the number of bedrooms or whether each has their own kitchen facilities. It is also undisclosed whether a $600 a week unit would include access to communal areas.
One tenant already signed up said he was attracted to the “Home Southbank’ style of living for the social aspect.
Lord Mayor Sally Capp said that in the face of the current housing shortage that this will give people a new alternative.
Sold to potential consumers as a move into a new ‘asset class’, the concept aims to pacify the idea of striving for home ownership in the current volatile and highly inflated market.
As defined by Propertyhelp.uk ‘rent for life’ also known as ‘lease for life’ is “a lifetime tenancy agreement between the new or current owner of a property and a tenant who wants to lease the property until they pass away. They are often exercised by investors who are looking for a long-term capital growth investment.”
Propertyhelp.uk notes that most lenders will not grant a mortgage to purchase a property with a lifetime lease agreement, so the market is mostly reserved for cash buyers.
Ultimately this means that a liquidation of personal assets and property would be required to raise cash funds to facilitate entering the ‘rent for life’ market.
While the MSM pitch of avoiding a life of debt may be an attractive option for some, ‘rent for life’ just seems like the transferal of mortgage debt from one corporation to an uncertain and highly changeable rental or leasing debt with another on a cash investment basis.
Rent for life is not an entirely new idea. In 2020 Sterling First was part of a ‘rent-for-life’ scam that saw over one hundred investors ripped off and some left homeless after being enticed into liquidating the entirety of their assets including homes.
With the intention of investors moving into the rental properties for life, the promises made to participants of considerable returns from the long-term lease scheme, fell disastrously short of delivering.
Sterling First’s asset management firm Theta Asset Management was ordered to pay 2 million dollars, and its managing director Robert Patrick was ordered to pay $100,000 for failing to ensure misleading information was not contained in its product disclosure statements.
Of the estimated $17 million raised through its disclosures from 2016 to 2018 KMPG reported that it was unlikely investors would get a cent back.
Now with reports of twenty-five more of these multi-level communal-based dwellings planned it seems covid narrative is no longer a consideration for the time being, and social distancing is now a mere afterthought. The rise of any one of the prophetically foretold pandemics set to affect Australia will more than likely lead to more draconian lockdowns, that could potentially turn these communal towers into multi-story cement prisons reminiscent of recent lockdown scenes in Shanghai.
Corralling people into high-rise living and moving our seniors into similar situations in aged care settings frees up private property ownership and drives people into more controllable areas, particularly if those areas are pegged for surveilled Smart City development, of which Melbourne is. Other smart cities planned or already applying the practices of smart city surveillance, data collection, and tracking are in the areas of Lismore NSW, Bendigo VIC, Canning WA, Googong NSW, and Whittlesea VIC, to name just a few.
Rather than focusing on policy to assist homebuyers or releasing the estimated $1.2 billion in aid allocations sitting in government coffers for people to rebuild their homes in areas that have been devastated, like Lismore, NSW, ‘rent for life’ schemes were the ones given a government lifeline.
Let’s not forget the emergence of the ‘rent-for-life’ scheme was all made possible by recent Australian government land tax changes and may contribute to solving the government’s dilemma of land acquisition for its Smart City plans by concentrating the country’s populations into city centres.
But does the emergence of the scheme in Australia signal the start of something more sinister that is not quite apparent at face value or is it just a new way of living?
When shiny new concepts are sold to you by the mainstream as more convenient, luxurious, and secure as opposed to home ownership, and when the language used to promote the idea parrots the language used in Smart City and Smart places strategy paraphernalia, it might be wise to take a closer look –
It may just turn out in the end that ‘you will own nothing and be happy!’
