Real Estate Body Shoots Down Calls for Public ‘Landlord Register’

Signage for a real estate property is seen in Carlton North, Melbourne, Australia, on July 18, 2018. AAP Image/James Ross

The Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) has criticised a proposal to create a “landlord register” that will tell the public how many properties an owner may have and their place of residence.

The proposal, put forward by Tenants Queensland, argues that such a system would balance out a supposed imbalance of power between landlords and tenants and keep “rogue landlords honest.”

“When renters are trying to secure a property, they provide a whole lot of information about themselves, usually to a real estate agent, sometimes before they even see a property. But [the renter] knows little if anything about the landlord,” said Penny Carr, the CEO of Tenants Queensland, in comments obtained by The Guardian.

She said the policy could also outline whether landlords were renting out their properties on a short or long-term basis and whether they were vacant.

“We want to know who we are benefiting when we make those policy decisions because, usually, policy has winners and losers,” she said.

The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute backed the comments, which said a landlord register could keep a small minority of “cowboy” landlords in check.

“We need to balance the use of the property as a nest egg for the investor with it being a nest for the person living in it,” said Michael Fotheringham, managing director of the Institute. “At the moment, that balance still leans in favour of the investor.”

A Square Peg for a Round Hole

In response, REIQ CEO Antonia Mercorella said a register would do little to deal with the housing crisis affecting the state and noted the extensive regulatory regime already in place.

“Governments, at all levels, are already aware of who and how many property owners are providing housing for Queenslanders—they certainly know how to get in touch with them because they issue relevant tax, rates notices, and other fees directly to them,” she said in a statement on Oct. 13.

“We’re also concerned that if a landlord register was established under the guise of informing government policy, that the motive of using it to find new ways to punish and strongarm investors into decisions around how they use their property would inevitably become apparent.”

Mercorella also said tenant and landlord relations were already governed by standard agreements.

“This means that everyone in a tenancy relationship has the ability to communicate as and when necessary, and given the ongoing obligations between the parties, it’s in everyone’s interests to keep these lines of communication open,” she said.

The state is currently grappling with a housing and rental crisis driven by high interstate migration from the southern states of New South Wales and Victoria during the pandemic years.

In fact, in the year to March 2022, the state’s population increased by 53,984, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. A bigger net gain than any other state and territory by far.