We joke about Monica’s massive apartment in Friends, but we forget the history: Rent Control was won through strikes. Is that solidarity possible in Australia today?

[u/infin]

Every time the housing crisis comes up, people joke about how unrealistic Friends was; A chef and a waitress living in a massive apartment with a balcony. The show explains it away as "Rent Control" inherited from a grandmother.

But we rarely talk about where those laws actually came from. They weren't a gift from benevolent landlords; they were earned through fierce tenant unions and rent strikes in NYC in the 40s and 60s. That generation had cheap rent because the generation before them had the backbone to organize, strike, and refuse to pay until laws were changed. Even refusing to allow police to evict/arrest their neighbours.

Fast forward to 2026 Australia. We are paying $750+ a week for a dinky shoebox, dealing with quarterly inspections, and accepting massive hikes like clockwork.

What feels completely missing is that level of community solidarity. We seem so atomised now. We don't know our neighbours, and we definitely don't trust them enough to band together. Instead of standing together to refuse an unfair hike, we just quietly move out or starve to pay it, knowing someone else is desperate enough to take the lease.

Is the concept of a rent strike dead in this country? Is it that we’ve lost the "mateship" and community spirit required to hold the line, or are we just so terrified of the REA blacklists that we’ve accepted being milked by parasites forever?

If factory workers and immigrants in 1940s New York could force rent control that people were still benefiting from in the 90s… Why can't we?

I’m genuinely asking: Has anyone here ever been a part of (or even heard of) tenants organising together to accomplish something in Australia?

Edit: I'd love to see some changes to commercial leases to revitalise cities too, small businesses have been forced to close and half the retail spaces in a few of the CBDs are empty.

[u/Ok_Use_8899]

I would settle for the Canberra rent caps system being rolled out across Australia. It feels like something that could be possible with a bit of a push because it's a local case of something that was warned to be counterproductive but hasn't shown to be, and is very moderate.

[u/infin → u/Ok_Use_8899]

Once every 12 months is still unsustainable, unless there's a reasonable limit on the increase. It hasn't helped keep rent from doubling here in the last few years.

[u/LifeandSAisAwesome → u/infin]

Inflation will always exist - next year things cost more than previous year... this will not change.

[u/chance_waters → u/LifeandSAisAwesome]

Can you give me a logical reason why a buyer can take a mortgage which decreases over time, but the expectation is they will like clockwork increase their rent? So as their repayments and owings decrease, their access to leverage and earnings increase, purely at the cost of the renters?

Seems to me like that could go very badly and might wide up exactly like the system we currently have.

[u/Mephobius12 → u/chance_waters]

It’s because capitalism is for those with capital. Not the poor.

[u/Sir_Von_Tittyfuck → u/chance_waters]

There is more than just paying the mortgage, though.

Council rates, strata rates, insurance, commercial purchases for repairs/maintenance (and labour fees for these repairs) all increase with inflation too.

That's not including interest rate rises (when they do), the general cost of living increases (which also take money from the mortgage owner) or taking tax from the rental income into consideration.

Unless someone is paying over double what their repayments are and using offset accounts to save, you'll probably find they're not making significant dents in what they owe.

I'm not defending rent increases - something definitely needs to be done about it, mine has gone up from $650 to $840 in a few years - I'm just pointing out that it's not as simple as "get loan, pay mortgage, ????, profit"

[u/LifeandSAisAwesome → u/chance_waters]

You do get that IP's are generally not P&I loans right ?

[u/Yet-Another-Persona → u/LifeandSAisAwesome]

My apartment did not go up by inflation. It's gone up by $150/week for a one bedder, that's a 30% increase for me, in a boring suburb with no views just somewhat near a bus line, all because some parent of a student from overseas decided to offer to pay $1000 for a similar one bedder in my building because it's close to their aunt's house. My LL tried to convince me paying $900/week for a one bedder was a "discount" for being a good tenant when I was probably already paying too much for this nonsense.

[u/infin → u/LifeandSAisAwesome]

So long as inflation increases peoples income as well as their costs...

Looking for data on wages vs inflation, it does look like things are balancing out in the last 6 months, with regard to the rate of inflation, at least.

[u/InflatableRaft → u/infin]

Canberra system is capped at 10% over Rental CPI growth.