A landlord who owns seven properties has slammed the idea that renters are being ripped off during the housing crisis.
Jo Vadillo, a 50-year-old mother-of-three who leases out several homes, said many renters mistakenly regarded landlords as a privileged set determined to squeeze their tenants.
‘This is my biggest bug: everyone goes «you rich landlords»,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I do this really hard because I’m self employed.’
Australia is in a grip of a rental crisis with the capital city vacancy rate still at an ultra-low 1.3 per cent amid a population boom, leading to intense competition for homes and rising prices.
Ms Vadillo, who owns houses, a block of flats and blocks of land in Brisbane, said tenants do not appreciate that landlords often faced unexpected expenses, citing an recent unexpected bill for $7,590 to remove a tree.
The Reserve Bank’s 13 interest rate rises across 2022 and 2023 had also caused monthly mortgage repayments to surge by 70 per cent, forcing landlords to raise rents so they pay off their home loans.
A landlord who owns seven properties has slammed the idea that renters are deliberately being ripped off during a housing crisis (Jo Vadillo is pictured right with her husband Greg Vadillo)
If landlords are forced to sell, the supply of rental stock is potentially reduced, forcing tenants to find somewhere else to live.
‘The reality is that some people can’t pay that mortgage, they’re going to have to sell the house,’ she said.
‘So you’re going to be out of a house anyway.’
But Ms Vadillo, the founder of buyer’s agent Advocate Property Services, admitted some unscrupulous landlords were using the rate rises as an excuse to raise rents without cause.
‘Sometimes people are just price gouging, I understand that happens,’ she said.
‘I’ve seen it and I haven’t done it.’
New laws in Queensland came into effect in July 2023, allowing landlords to only increase rents once a year.
The laws also stop new owners from increasing the rent on existing tenants, and landlords cannot hike rents on new tenants before the year is up, if the old tenants move out early.
‘That’s the kind of control I think you need because there are definitely people out there who are price gouging for sure, I don’t doubt that,’ she said.
Jo Vadillo, a 50-year-old mother-of-three, said renters often had the perception that most landlords had set out to squeeze tenants
‘Some people just lack integrity that don’t give a s*** about who they’re kicking on the street whereas for me, I would rather maintain good tenants and keep our increases minimal.’
The landlord said in one scenario, she increased the weekly rent by only $10 despite the property manager suggesting she put it up by $40.
‘She’s a really good tenant, she’s a low-income earner – unfortunately, even the $10 (increase meant) we lost her then I said, «Let’s not put it up at all»,’ she said.
Ms Vadillo, who was raised by a single mother who gave birth to her at 17, said she saw property investment as her retirement savings plan.
‘I didn’t get handouts, my mum was a single parent when I was born, we’ve tried really hard to get where we are today so I really get aggravated when I see people go, «They’re just rich, they’ve taken all the rentals off other people’,» she said. ‘This is my superannuation.
‘I love property, I’m doing well for myself, there’s no doubt about that but I work really hard, I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to get where I am today.’
The Sydney-based landlord started her property journey in 2002, aged 28, when she bought a two-bedroom apartment in inner-city Hurlstone Park for $315,000 back when she was earning $45,000 a year working in advertising.
She started Advocate Property Services in 2011 with her husband Greg Vadillo, before setting up educational group Property Women in 2015 to help female home buyers.
Ms Vadillo, who was raised by a single mother who gave birth to her at 17, said she saw property investment as her retirement savings plan
Ms Vadillo’s investment portfolio includes a dual-key home at Marsden, in Logan south of Brisbane.
It has two sections with three bedrooms on one side and two on the other, yielding a weekly rent of $980 as part of one tenancy agreement.
She also owns two houses in Marsden and two blocks of land in that suburb with development approval to build two more dual-key homes.
She also owns a block of flats in Redcliffe, bought with super.
The Vadillos have capitalised on south-east Queensland’s population boom from interstate migration, after selling her Sydney investment properties.
‘The infrastructure up there is phenomenal – there’s a lot of interstate migration so it’s a little bit of a perfect storm going on in Brissie,’ she said.
The landlord, whose principal place of residence is at Forestville on Sydney’s northern beaches, advised first-home buyers to also consider an investment property in an affordable regional market to get the capital growth and high rental yields.
‘If you’ve got a pre-approval, maybe it doesn’t break you into Sydney – just get on the ladder,’ she said.
‘Buy in Maitland or East Maitland or somewhere like a regional hub like a Tamworth.
‘In some of these areas, you get good yields – let that nest egg grow while you live your life in Sydney.’
Couples buying their first home in Sydney, to live in, are also advised to consider homes worth more than $750,000, if they could afford it, rather than buying under that threshold to qualify for a $10,000 first-home buyer’s grant from the state government.
A stamp duty exemption for NSW first-home buyers also applies for home worth up to $800,000, with concessional transfer duty discounts applying for property worth up to $1million.
‘I do come across younger couples – as a combined income they are able to borrow more – but they keep their spend small to try and chase the government incentives,’ she said.
Ms Vadillo said chasing government incentives meant first-home buyers were often buying a unit or a house further away from the city, depriving themselves of decent capital growth
‘People are chasing that dollar amount to try and get their benefits.
‘That’s a false economy mindset – «I’m going to spend under $750K and save on stamp duty» – their first purchase could be a more elaborate, larger home.’
Ms Vadillo said chasing government incentives usually meant buying a unit or a house further away from the city which will not appreciate much in value.
‘Capital growth, proximity to the city – young buyers also don’t understand how capital growth works,’ she said.
For struggling home borrowers, Ms Vadillo said they would always rent out spare rooms to service those mortgage repayments.
‘People don’t want to do this but they can sub-let rooms, they can have other people share and help pay mortgages,’ she said.
‘People just don’t want to live like that, it’s a bit of a sacrifice to get the mortgage down.’
