Zifferblatt with double f and double t is a German and Russian word for a watch face. Ziferblat with only one f and one t is a home you can rent by the minute. The missing letters are a clue to what you get – not the whole deal.
Private renting continues to expand at the expense of home ownership, newly released ABS statistics show. More than one in four Australians (27%) are now tenants of a private landlord (2017-18). Only one in five lived in private rental housing in 1997-98.
A growing proportion of Australian households depend on the private rental sector for accommodation. This growth has occurred despite substantial insecurity of tenure under the law, unlike other countries with high private rental rates, such as Germany.
Deloitte Access Economics’ Chris Richardson recently suggested that young Australians would be better off renting than trying to buy a house.
In all Australia’s capital cities, average share-house rents in the inner suburbs (where jobs are concentrated) leave people without enough money for food and other basics, new research shows.
How we fund retirement in an ageing century ought to worry all of us. But one group of us should be much more worried than the rest.