100,000 Melbourne Homes Sit EMPTY as Landlords REFUSE to Rent Them Out

Welcome back.Housing is one of the biggest issues facing Australians today.Prices have surged, supply can't keep up and the system is under real strain.

These are the faces of Housing Hope.Australians in the national fight for a place to call home.

16 ,000 with their name registered for public housing, with thousands listed as category one, the highest priority for those in need of a home.

Everyone's asking the same question.

Throw up your hands if you think, will you be able to afford your own home?

27 million people, 10 million homes, it just isn't enough.

From deceased estates, deceased properties, soaring prices and land banking, around 1 million homes are empty across the country.

63 ,000 families are looking for somewhere to live.And this debacle is sitting here in the heart of Melbourne.

There are more and more vacant homes, vacant apartments in Melbourne.There are tens of thousands of them because there's a lot more homes not using any water, like no water at all.

There's almost definitely at least one empty home on your street.Across the country, experimental ABS data suggests that up to 40 ,000, 140, 140 ,000 dwellings are sitting vacant.So why would houses, apartments and blocks of land be left sitting empty?

I'm going to be honest, if I had given a house with maybe a faulty kitchen and all that stuff, I would pay my own money just to live in that house.

Here's what nobody is telling you about Melbourne's housing crisis.Right now, 100 ,945 homes across Melbourne are sitting empty or underused.Nearly 32 ,000 of those haven't had a single drop of water run through their pipes in an entire year.Not one shower, not one toilet flush, not one cup of tea.In just a few suburbs over, 24 ,000 Melburnians are homeless.32 ,000 empty homes.

24 ,000 people without one.That's not a coincidence.That's a policy failure you can measure with a water meter.

There's growing anger at the lack of action to redevelop a social housing site in Melbourne's inner southeast.

20 houses here, all abandoned.The fencing continually gets ripped down, there's graffiti, there's broken glass.

It's that empty sense squatters making themselves at home instead.

It's a big housing fail.

But here's what makes it worse.The Victorian government introduced a vacant residential land tax specifically designed to force these homes back into use.It's been running since 2017, expanded statewide from January 2025, and the number of empty homes went up 16 % in a single year.The tax isn't working.

400 ,000 extra Victorians are now going to be charged land tax after the last state budget added a total of 860 ,000 Victorians are now going to be affected by this.

This housing shortage that we have right now is going to be impacted very heavily in Victoria and Melbourne.All you ever see happening is taxes, taxes, taxes.

Today, I'm going to show you the three reasons Melbourne has 100 ,000 empty homes.the investor exodus, the vacancy paradox, and the construction collapse, with verified data from Prosper Australia, the Reserve Bank, Homes Victoria, the ABS, and real stories from landlords and renters trapped on both sides of this crisis.Let's get into it.

Where does that 16 % figure come from?

That's the number of the percentage increase of totally empty homes in the last 12 months.So it's gone from 27 ,500 to just under 32 ,000.

And where are those empty homes?

Right, let's start with the number that redefines this crisis.Prosper Australia's 2025 speculative vacancies report The only study in Australia that measures empty homes using actual water meter data across Melbourne's three major water retailers covering nearly two million dwellings confirmed that 31 ,890 Melbourne homes used zero water for a full calendar year.Zero.That figure was up 16 % from 27 ,500 the year before.When you include underused homes, properties with minimal water use suggesting they're barely occupied, the total climbs to 100 ,945.That's 5 .2 % of all Melbourne housing stock.

Prosper Australia's research director Tim Helm put it in terms that should stop you cold.That's equivalent to two and a half years of new construction, enough to house everyone on the Victorian public housing waitlist twice over.

Thousands of people are tonight languishing on the public housing waitlist while almost 1 ,500 homes remain empty across the state.

Over 16 ,000 with their name registered for public housing, with thousands listed as Category 1, the highest priority for those in need of a home.

And here's the irony that should enrage every renter watching this.The Victorian Government introduced a vacant residential land tax starting at 1 per cent of capital improved value in year one, rising to 2 per cent in year two and 3 per cent from year three onwards, specifically to penalise owners who leave home.empty for more than six months.It was expanded statewide from January 2025.The Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office estimated only around 10 ,000 properties would be liable.Prosper Australia found 31 ,890 completely empty homes.

Translation, the tax, is either not reaching its targets, not being enforced, or both.The government knows the homes are empty, they built a tax to fix it, and the number went up.

Abandoned homes are being left to rot in the midst of our worsening housing crisis.

After years of waiting on the public housing list, this mum of four had no other option but to live next door to this.

Increased land tax on empty properties, and I think this is a good example of where that should be going.

Now, while 100 ,000 homes sit dark, here's what's happening to the people looking for one.A renter on R slash shit rentals in September 2024 posted that 74 people had registered for a single rental inspection.Their words, that means only a 1 .35 % chance of approval if everyone from that single inspection applies.I'll need to move out in six and a half weeks because the landlord is selling.A commenter in the same thread described arriving at a tiny one -bedroom flat in a notoriously overpriced building that barely fit a single amoeba, and finding more than 120 people touring it.

four, five families when we have a vacancy, just one room available.Online staff trying to make those impossible decisions about who gets the room tonight.

And a crowdsourced thread on r slash Melbourne in August 2024 documented the rent shock hitting individual families.One poster, our NRAS ended in April and our rent went from $280 per week to $485 per week.Melbourne.One -bedroom apartment, no car spot.When we tried to negotiate, they threatened us with eviction.Another, rent in 2021 was $600 per week.

Stayed $600 for 2022.2023, they tried to raise it to $780, argued down to $760.Now it's $850.Stuck here, right now, as I'm trying to buy an apartment.A third poster summed it up in four words.We are completely trapped.

Domain's Q3 2025 report confirmed the data behind the desperation.Melbourne unit asking rents hit a record high of $575 per week.House rents reached $580 per week.Domain's chief of research, Dr Nicola Powell, said, we still have a landlord's market across Melbourne.We're not yet at that turning point.A landlord's market in while 100 ,000 homes sit empty.

let that sink in.

Now,I mean we've got record high rents, record low vacancy rates all around the country.

Now, to be fair, not all 100 ,000 empty homes are owners deliberately withholding stock.Some are in probate.Some are mid -renovation.Some are between tenancies during settlement.Prosper Australia acknowledges this, which is exactly why they use a full calendar year of zero water consumption as the threshold for completely empty.Even accounting for legitimate vacancy – 31 ,890 homes with zero water use for 12 straight months – is not normal market friction.

It's structural.But here's what nobody is telling you.The reason tens of thousands of Melbourne homes are sitting empty isn't laziness or accident.It was triggered by a specific set of tax decisions that made it more expensive to hold a rental than to leave the property vacant and sell.And I can prove it with government data.

Melbourne's rental crisis is worsening with desperate landlords paying tenants to get out of their properties.Housing experts say it's a byproduct of new taxes and rising rates.Another rental property gone.

Whistle!By far, Victoria has the most onerous rental legislation in this country by a long way.It will make it harder for Victorians, especially younger Victorians, to access housing.

Right.The State Revenue Office confirms the Victorian land tax threshold was cut from $300 ,000 to just $50 ,000, the lowest in Australia by a factor of 12.For comparison, New South Wales doesn't charge land tax until $1 ,075 ,000.Queensland starts at $600 ,000.In Victoria, if your investment property has a site value of $600 ,000, you're paying $2 ,250 in general land tax.Hold it in a bank.

$4 ,263.And if you're an absentee owner, $26 ,250, nearly 10 times the base rate for the same property in the same state.In no other state in Australia does the tax burden look anything like this.

Incredibly, Victorians are paying $20 .7 million a day to service the interest alone.

As you said, highest taxed state in the nation.The tax take over the next four years is going to push $180 billion.Every single Victorian is paying for a Labor government that cannot manage money.

And the market responded exactly the way you'd expect.Holmes Victoria rental bond data confirms Victoria lost 24 ,726 rental properties in the 12 months to September 2024.The fastest decline since records began in 1999.R -E -I -V -C -E -O.Kelly Ryan told realestate .com .

au.I guarantee it will be worse because the quantum of properties we saw on the market in September, Petchouane, October and November was unprecedented.A Victorian landlord with 10 investment properties called 3AW Radio to publicly state he was liquidating every property.The thread landed on r slash shit rentals.His exact words.I'm fed up with being battered by this government with new taxes, fees and regulations.

It's absurd.I've reached a point where I will never, ever invest in Victoria again.

Joseph, hello.Yes, hello.Look, I'm a landlord and I can tell you I am sick and tired of getting pounded into the ground by this government.introducing new taxes, new fees, new regulations.It is ridiculous.It is at the stage now where I will never, ever, ever invest in Victoria again.

Joseph, yeah, how many properties do you have?

I've got 10.

You've got 10?And you're going to pull out of all of them?

10 properties.Gone.Ray White Group's chief economist Narida Connersby confirmed the bigger picture in realestate .com .au.Victoria now wears the unenviable title of having the highest property taxes in Australia.

PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan added that the number of Victorian investors selling up was about 10 % higher than in New South Wales and Queensland.The money isn't just leaving Victoria.It's going to specific states, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, where the tax burden is a fraction of Melbourne's.And here's the proof that some landlords are literally choosing to keep properties empty rather than rent them out.A couple on r slash Orse Property Chat in October 2025 posted that they'd offered to pay 12 months' rent up front at $530 per week.That's $27 ,560 cash on the table, guaranteed, and were declined.

The same property was relisted six weeks later at a reduced price of $515 per week.The landlord turned down guaranteed annual income and then listed the property for less.That is a property owner who would rather leave the home vacant than deal with the rental system.And another poster on r slash Melbourne in mid -2024 described submitting 30 rental applications and being rejected from every single one.one.Their observation?

Many of our applications have reached the sent to owner for approval stage, indicating that owners are rejecting them rather than the PMs, landlords, not agents, choosing to say no.

Torians are facing rent increases this morning as families are hit with huge land tax bills for properties they own.A task force introduced to crack down on landlords and agents who are under -quoting tenant.

The housing and rental crisis is out of control.Supply of houses for sale are considerably down on the past three or four years.

Rent needs to be more affordable.Landlords need to be held to account and the government should provide shelter to those in need.

And the perverse cycle is catching investors who want to sell but can't move fast enough.One investor on r slash oarsproperty chat in February 2026 described an investment property that had been vacant since October 2025, listed for sale since September with no buyer.Their words, I understand that if the investment property remains vacant for six months, regardless of our attempts to sell it, we will be liable for the full land tax, starting at 1 % per annum.They can't sell fast enough to escape the tax, but holding costs them more tax every month.That's the vacancy paradox.The tax designed to stop empty homes is trapping owners in a cycle where the home stays empty longer.

To be fair, the Victorian government itself acknowledged the apartment market is so distressed that it introduced emergency stamp duty concessions for off -the -plan purchases in October 2024, a 12 -month window explicitly designed to stimulate sales.That's the government admitting the market is broken while simultaneouslyrunning a tax regime that is making it worse.The two policies contradict each other.

The RBA is facing quite the dilemma.Inflation is still too high, which is normally remedied by a rate hike.But at the same time, the jobs market has been slowing down.Unemployment is rising and that could be made worse if rates were to go up.

If we don't get inflation back down to the target and inflation expectations start to rise, then that won't be good for employment because we will have to raise interest rates quite a lot more and we will have to hurt the economy more.

Here's the stat I've been holding back.The Council to Homeless Persons published its 2025 Housing Insecurity Index showing Victoria's social housing waitlist has surged past 66 ,000 people, up 7 .4 % in a single year.Over 13 ,000 Victorians every month are seeking homelessness services due to family violence.And Victoria's proportion of social housing, the housing of last resort, is just 3 % of total stock.The lowest in the country, 66 ,000 people waiting, 100 ,000 homes empty, and the construction pipeline that should be filling the gap has collapsed.So how does Melbourne's empty homes crisis compare to the rest of Australia and the world?

Prosper Australia's Rainer Fahey told ABC Radio National that nationally, experimental ABS data suggests up to 140 ,000 dwellings are sitting vacant across the country.And A -H -U -R -I -C -E -O, Dr Michael Fotheringham, appearing alongside Fahey, confirmed the structural nature of the problem.This isn't a temporary blip.It's a systemic failure of incentives.

Well, new research claims that the number of empty dwellings across Melbourne has risen dramatically from more than 27 ,000 in 2023 to nearly 32 ,000 in 2018.in 2024.And across the country, experimental ABS data suggests that up to 140 ,000 dwellings are sitting vacant.

How's the number of empty homes compared to the number of homeless people?

Well, that's the heartbreaking thing, isn't it?There's 24 ,000 homeless residents in Melbourne and there's 65 ,000 people on the public housing waiting list.

Meanwhile, the NHSAC The federal government's own housing supply body confirmed in May 2025 that Australia is tracking 77 ,000 homes behind the $1 .2 million housing accord target after just 18 months.Advertised rents rose 4 .8 per cent over 2024.More than half of lower -income renter households are now in housing stress.And the construction sector that should be solving the supply crisis?ASIC's data confirms construction insolvencies hit 2 ,975 in FY 2023 -24, by 27 per cent of all company failures nationally.The builders who are supposed to fill the gap are going broke faster than they can lay slabs.

And internationally, the comparison makes Melbourne look even worse.Demographia's 2025 International Housing Affordability Report ranks Melbourne at 9 .7 times median income, classified impossibly unaffordable, worse than Greater London at 9 .1 times.For the first time ever, not one of 95 housing markets across eight nations was classified as affordable.Australia has five cities in the global top 15.no other country comes close, and New Zealand, the country most structurally similar to theAustralia, is going in the opposite direction.

New Zealand's national value to income ratio has improved to 7 .5 times its best level in six years.NZ rents actually declined 3 .2 % year -on -year as of October 2025, the sharpest fall in roughly 30 years.The reason?NZ's dwelling stock growth is outpacing population growth.Australia's is doing the opposite.Same region, same economic structure, completely different trajectory because one country built enough homes and the other didn't.

Canada's rental vacancy rate has risen to 4 .5 % nationally in Q4 2025, more than three times Melbourne's 1 .4%.Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, all loosening.Some Canadian markets are posting negative rent growth.Australia?Vacancy at 1 .0 to 1 .4 % nationally.Rental listings at a record low.

And the pipeline collapsing.We are now the outlier among comparable Western economies.And the RBA's April 2025 Financial Stability Review confirmed Victoria specifically as the state with the sharpest rise in mortgage arrears across Australia.The RBA attributed it to a larger -than -average share of borrowers experiencing cash flow shortfalls, meaning the combination of land tax plus high rates plus flat -to -falling values is now breaking Victorian mortgage holders at a pace no other state is experiencing.Roy Morgan's August 2025 data showed 27 .9 per cent of mortgage holders—1 ,423 ,000 Australians—classified as at riskof mortgage stress.

By December, it had eased to 24 .5%, but that's still 442 ,000 more Australians at risk than before rate rises began in 2022.So what happens next?Three scenarios.Best case, the vacant residential land tax enforcement improves under the statewide expansion.The land tax revenue is redirected to social housing construction.And the 31 ,890 completely empty homes are either taxed into the rental market or compulsorily acquired.

The supply gap begins closing.Vacancy rates normalise above 2 .5 per cent.Rent growth moderates.Realistic case.And this is where most of the data points the land tax regime continues driving investors out faster than the VRLT pushes empty homes back in.The 100 ,000 empty homes figure stabilises or grows marginally as the construction pipeline stays frozen.

Melbourne rents stabilise at record highs but don't fall meaningfully.The social housing waitlist continues growing past $70 ,000 and the $24 ,000 homeless figure becomes a permanent feature of Melbourne's landscape.Worst case, the investor Exodus accelerates past the $25 ,000 annual loss rate.Construction insolvencies climb past the FY 2024 -25 record.The VRLT expansion triggers a wave of forced sales that crash apartment values further.making the 43 .7 % CBD loss rate the new baseline across middle ring suburbs.

Empty homes climb past 35 ,000 as owners in the vacancy paradox can't sell and won't rent.Melbourne's rental vacancy stays below 1%.while 100 ,000 homes sit dark, absolutely cooked.So what does this mean for you, depending on where you sit?If you're a renter in Melbourne, the 100 ,000 empty homes are not coming back to the rental market under the current policy settings.You are competing for a shrinking pool and the data says it's not going to ease before 2028 at the earliest.

Negotiate hard on renewals because your landlord is more likely to be selling than reletting.If you're a landlord in Victoria, Run the full cost stack, land tax plus VRLT plus council rates plus insurance plus body corporate, against your rental income and compare it to what you'd net by selling and redeploying into Queensland or Western Australia.If you're an investor looking at Victoria from interstate, The land tax threshold of $50 ,000 versus $1 ,075 ,000 in New South Wales is the single most important number you need to know.And if you're a first -home buyer, the combination of falling values, the stamp -duty concession on off -the -plan purchases, and desperate sellers in the inner ring is creating entry points that didn't exist two years ago.But only if the building is structurally sound and the sinking fund is adequately funded.Here's the truth.

100 ,945 Melbourne homes sit empty or underused, while 24 ,000 people are homeless and 66 ,000 are waiting for social housing.The investor Exodus has removed 24 ,726 rental properties in 12 months, and the vacant residential land tax designed to fix it has presided over a 16 % increase.in empty homes.I'll be covering the suburb -by -suburb vacancy data, the construction pipeline collapse, and the interstate capital flight every week.Subscribe to Aussie Explained so you don't miss the next video.Thanks for watching.

See you in the next one.