Luxury apartments offer no fix for housing crisis
Melbourne's new build-to-rent luxury apartment complexes are being marketed as a solution to the housing crisis, but critics argue they are too expensive for the average renter. These developments offer high-end amenities but often command rents significantly higher than the local median.
Why it matters
It highlights the tension between luxury urban development and the urgent need for affordable housing in major metropolitan areas.
Build-to-rent projects are outpacing conventional apartments in Melbourne. But are these luxury towers an answer to the rental squeeze and affordability crisis, or a costly distraction?
Travis Fein’s high-priced St Kilda apartment comes with access to a host of communal amenities. Simon Schluter Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items.
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Share A A A Travis Fein’s St Kilda Junction apartment has one of the most seductive views of Melbourne that money can buy.
On an upper floor in one of St Kilda’s tallest towers, his unit’s floor-to-ceiling windows give an uninterrupted view of the patchwork of open spaces around Albert Park Lake, Middle Park’s multimillion-dollar cottages far below and the curved shoreline of Port Phillip Bay beyond.
But Fein didn’t buy the view; he leased it.
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