NSW Bans No-Grounds Evictions

What the Policy Says

1. Jeremy walks through the NSW government's announcement, framed under the banner of "making renting fairer," which specifically targets ending no-grounds evictions. Under the proposed rules, a landlord could still end a tenancy for reasonable, clearly defined grounds, including rent arrears, an intention to sell the property, the need for significant repairs or renovation, the property no longer being used as a rental at all, a family member intending to move in, or the property no longer qualifying for a relevant affordable housing scheme (citing purpose-built student accommodation as one example, and speculating NDIS-related housing could be another).

Does This Address the Rental Crisis?

Jeremy states plainly that he doesn't see a problem with any of the specific listed grounds for eviction, since none of them would reasonably be objected to by a landlord acting in good faith. He shares a personal anecdote about being contacted by someone requesting a discount on a DSR Data subscription, citing financial hardship after losing their job, which he found suspicious given the nature of the product being sold, illustrating his view that a small minority of people (whether tenants or otherwise) will attempt questionable justifications for their own benefit, while stressing this doesn't reflect the majority of tenants or landlords fairly.

Damien notes landlords have also faced significant financial pressure recently, given interest rate rises have increased mortgage repayments by a much larger margin than rents have increased over the same period, even though public commentary often focuses solely on rent increases. Both agree this isn't a "landlords versus tenants" issue, and that the specific practice being targeted, evicting a tenant for no legitimate reason at all, doesn't appear to be common in the first place, based on the anecdotal evidence discussed. Jeremy shares that when he informally surveyed several experienced property managers he knows, one responded that in her experience, there is always a genuine reason behind an eviction, no landlord evicts a paying tenant purely at random, since that tenant represents their income.

Jeremy also raises a genuine underlying concern the policy may address: some tenants may hesitate to report legitimate maintenance issues out of fear of retaliatory eviction, and protecting tenants from that specific dynamic is something both hosts view as a reasonable goal. Damien shares his own approach as a landlord, promptly addressing tenant repair requests (citing a $1,000 pergola repair on an older property as an example) and treating a long-term, reliable tenant (in one case, a tenancy spanning 20 years) with genuine care, framing this as both the right approach and good business practice.

Is This Actually Backed by Data?

Jeremy's main criticism isn't the policy's substance, but its apparent lack of a clear evidentiary basis. He notes one property manager he corresponds with manages around 2,000 leases across the state, and over the past 12 months, only five tenants had formally objected to an eviction through the tenancy tribunal, a rate of roughly 0.25%. While acknowledging this is a small, informal sample, Jeremy questions whether the NSW government has genuine data showing no-grounds evictions are a widespread problem, or whether the policy is being introduced based on limited anecdotal complaints rather than measured evidence. His view is that the change is more about winning public favour on an issue with broad emotional resonance than addressing a demonstrably large-scale problem.

The Bigger Picture: Why This Doesn't Solve the Rental Crisis

Jeremy brings in a separate, related economic point from Peter Martin, an economist at the Australian National University, regarding a different policy context (interest-rate-driven investor sales). Martin's broader point, as Jeremy summarises it, is that when an investor sells a rental property to another investor, the total number of rental properties available doesn't change; but when an investor instead sells to an owner-occupier who would otherwise have been renting, both the number of available rental properties and the number of renters looking for one decrease together, meaning this kind of transaction shifts wealth between groups without necessarily easing the underlying rental shortage on its own.

Jeremy extends this reasoning with two illustrative hypothetical extremes. First, if a law forced every property investor to sell within six months, stock-on-market would spike dramatically (he estimates from under 1% to around 31%), causing a severe price collapse, an outcome that would let some tenants buy in at much lower prices, but would also cause broader economic damage (business failures, widespread negative equity) and ultimately increase homelessness, since falling prices alone wouldn't make ownership viable for tenants facing reduced incomes or opportunities in a damaged economy. Conversely, he suggests that strongly incentivising more people to become property investors (for example, through grants) would increase demand for new housing, prompting developers to respond with significantly more supply, genuinely easing the rental crisis, but argues no political party pursues this path because supporting property investors is unpopular with the broader voting public, given how negatively investors are often perceived.

Jeremy's overall conclusion is that policies like the no-grounds eviction ban tend to be politically popular without meaningfully addressing the underlying supply shortage driving the rental crisis, since genuinely solving it would require politically unpopular measures that support, rather than restrict, property investors.

Renting Isn't Necessarily a Bad Outcome

Damien reframes renting as not inherently a worst-case financial position, particularly in markets like inner-city Sydney units, where growth has often been weak or negative and continued high-rise supply persists. In his view, the main thing renting sacrifices is long-term stability and control over one's living situation, rather than financial outcome, and for people not yet prioritising that stability, "rentvesting" (renting where you want to live, investing where the numbers make sense) remains a financially sound strategy, one he personally uses himself.

Closing Thoughts

Jeremy notes this episode is one of the rarer cases where the discussion is necessarily more opinion-based than data-driven, given there's no historical precedent for this specific policy to analyse. Both agree that property investors in New South Wales have little practical reason for concern about the proposed changes themselves, while reiterating their broader frustration that policies like this don't meaningfully address the root causes of the rental crisis. They close by encouraging listeners to like, comment, and subscribe for future episodes.