Part 3 of a series on issues reshaping the Australian property market

Homelessness Is Everyone's Business: What Real Estate Agents Can Actually Do About It

Part 3 of a series on issues reshaping the Australian property market

Homelessness usually gets covered as a welfare story or a government-failure story. It's rarely covered as an industry story — which is strange, because the property sector sits closer to this issue than almost any other part of the economy. Every eviction, every lease renewal, every rental application an agent processes is a small decision point in whether someone stays housed or doesn't.

This piece isn't about guilt. It's about a genuine opportunity the property industry has already started acting on, and how individual agents and property managers can be part of it without stepping outside their professional lane.

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The scale of it, in numbers that matter to you

The latest Productivity Commission data paints a picture that's easy to miss if you only look at headline house prices. More than a quarter of a million households are currently on social housing waitlists across Australia, and well over 100,000 of those are classified as being in the greatest need. Separately, government research estimates that millions of Australians are just one financial shock — a rent increase, a job loss, an illness — away from losing their home entirely.

For agents, the number that matters most is this one: a meaningful share of the people who eventually end up homeless were, not long before, ordinary renters. Someone's tenant. Someone's rental application. The pathway into homelessness for a lot of people doesn't start on the street — it starts with a missed payment, a difficult conversation avoided, or a notice to vacate issued because it was the easiest option rather than the only one.

The industry is already organising around this

Here's what's genuinely encouraging: the property sector hasn't waited to be told this is its problem. A Home for All Foundation, an initiative backed by REA Group, runs an annual campaign called A Night Without Home, where property professionals around the country spend a night without the comforts of home — couch surfing, sleeping in a car, or simply fundraising — to raise money for people facing homelessness, with a particular focus on those affected by domestic and family violence. Leadership from major networks including Ray White and LJ Hooker have publicly backed the campaign, which has raised well over a million dollars industry-wide.

That matters for two reasons. First, it means there's already a credible, well-run channel for agents who want to contribute — you don't need to build something from scratch. Second, it signals that senior figures in the industry see this as core business, not corporate social responsibility bolted on the side. If your agency hasn't engaged with it yet, that's a genuinely easy first step, and a good thing to mention in your own marketing and community content.

What property managers are uniquely placed to see

Sales agents sit at the front end of the market. Property managers sit somewhere different — closer to the point where a tenancy either holds or breaks. That gives them visibility other people in a person's life often don't have.

A tenant who's suddenly a few days late with rent for the first time in three years. A tenant who goes quiet on maintenance requests, avoids the annual inspection, or seems to be having a rough run. None of these are proof of anything, and it's not a property manager's job to diagnose what's going on. But they are exactly the kind of early signal that, followed up with a normal, low-pressure conversation instead of an automatic notice, can be the difference between a tenancy that recovers and one that ends in eviction.

This isn't about carrying financial risk that isn't yours to carry, or letting arrears run indefinitely. It's about recognising that a five-minute phone call — "everything okay, want to talk about a payment plan?" — costs nothing and sometimes changes the outcome completely.

Five things agencies can actually do

1. Build a relationship with a local tenancy support service before you need one. Most regions have a tenancy sustainment or homelessness prevention service attached to a community housing provider or charity. Knowing who to call — before a tenancy is in crisis — means you have somewhere real to refer a struggling tenant, rather than a vague suggestion to "seek help."

2. Treat early arrears as a conversation, not just a process. The standard notice-based process exists for a reason and shouldn't be abandoned. But there's room, especially for long-term good tenants hitting a first rough patch, to have a human conversation alongside it. It costs the agency nothing and often resolves faster than the formal process alone.

3. Get involved in A Night Without Home, or a similar local campaign. It's an existing, credible, industry-run initiative rather than something you'd need to invent. Participating is also a legitimate, non-cringe way to show your local community you understand the issue rather than just selling houses in it.

4. Educate landlord clients on the value of keeping a reasonable tenant housed. Turnover is expensive — vacancy periods, re-letting fees, wear from a new move-in. A landlord who understands that a short-term payment plan for a normally reliable tenant is often the financially smarter choice, not just the compassionate one, is an easier client to have this conversation with.

5. Know your local social and community housing providers. Not as charity, but as part of your actual market. Community housing providers are increasingly active participants in the rental market, including in build-to-rent and affordable housing partnerships. Agents who understand this sector — who it houses, how its rent-setting works, how it interacts with private landlords — have a genuinely differentiated understanding of where the rental market is heading.

The bigger picture

None of this positions real estate agents as social workers, and it shouldn't. But the property industry is one of the few sectors with a plausible claim to being part of the solution rather than just a bystander to this issue — because housing, in the most literal sense, is the product agents deal in every day. The industry's own response to homelessness so far suggests plenty of people in it already understand that. The opportunity for individual agents and agencies is to turn that industry-level goodwill into something visible and practical at the local level, where it actually reaches the people who need it.

One way you could assist is to make a donation to the A Night without Home Awareness Campaign here: https://anightwithouthome.com.au/page/PaulCaine

This article is general information for real estate professionals and does not constitute welfare, legal, or financial advice. Agents concerned about a tenant's welfare should refer them to a qualified tenancy support or homelessness service rather than attempting to manage the situation directly.