As an immigrant to Australia, the dream is now being able to rent it. Cannot say that I feel that there is tall poppy at work, things can be quite creative and competitive. Schools do give that feeling of subdued expectations. I’d say education is the key factor for subpar performance, with very limited focus on academic achievement and inter generational education segregation partially built into the system. Australia beats significantly below its weight education wise. Weather, language, affluence would have you expect at least a couple globally leading universities. They are good, but nowhere near where they could be, as they focused on the easy money of attracting Chinese students just on the basis of proximity and language. With this source drying up, I see many academics I knew leaving the country (5 out of 5 is anecdotal and explicitly correlated, but hard to not take it seriously).
I'm not sure that's the dream. For me it's a massive cause of anxiety and recurring stress.
I've been renting for my entire adult life in NSW. Despite NSW (and Australia in general) having pretty decent tenant protections - it's getting increasingly difficult to find a landlord/real-estate agent who isn't trying to just outright screw their tenants, because they can get away with it.
- Constantly pushing rental rates, at absolutely every opportunity. Owning rental property is no longer just a solid investment that'll pay itself off, no, they're pushing the whole the-most-the-market-will-bear aspect.
- Forcing use of rental payment platforms that are privacy invasive and charge additional fees (rather than just free direct-deposit)
- Completely ignoring basic tenant requests, unless you force their hand.
- Outright abusive and even unlawful contracts and if you protest - well fuck you, find somewhere else to live.
You're never able to be totally secure, because landlords are able to just toss you out, no reason or cause - or able to construct causes if you're able to protest them.
I was tongue in cheek. I was just issued a notice to vacate with no grounds a week ago, so believe me I am with you. And no, apparently tenant protection is not decent at all. European countries are much better in tenant protection.
Wow. This seems terrible. I never really understood the anglo obsession with owning a house (easier to move with rentals, outperformed by the stock market while not paying dividends, and still crashing with the stock market).
But if renting is that bad in your world, i really understand.
