Every time he rethinks living in a stranger's home, Nick McClure only has to look at the Sydney housing market.
The 29-year-old bank worker started house-sitting a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, thinking it was a loophole to staying with friends or paying for accommodation on a trip to Melbourne.
But with rental properties becoming scarce, what started as a travel hack has become an ongoing state of flux for Mr McClure.
"Because it was so easy to set up I just kept doing it," he said.
"I've been bouncing around Sydney since the beginning of 2022."
In the weeks between bookings, Mr McClure is able to stay at home with his parents.
With the next job after his current one not starting until June, he's facing a long interim.
"I'm getting sick of carrying 10 IKEA bags with all my stuff into a new house; it'd be nice to get a bit of stability going in my life," he said.
"Living at home is crazy for me. My sister's there with her kids, and my mum and dad, it's a full house. It's not ideal to be back there.
"I'd like to keep going with house sitting but at the moment I just don't think it's possible.
"Every time I think about leaving home I just pull up the property listings."
While house sitting might be an appealing short-term option for some amid the housing crisis, it's a limited resource, said Tenants' Union of NSW chief Leo Patterson Ross.
"People are trying a range of things to make it work," he said.
"And often for a lot of the different ways of managing … they're nice little niches for some people but then it gets overcrowded and actually stops working.
"When it's presented as a solution to affordability, that's where it's more of a coping mechanism and people are moving there because the system's failed them, rather than because of a positive choice they're making."
Rent increase caps and a culture change necessary
Rental uncertainty and unpredictability have only intensified since the beginning of the pandemic, with a widening gap between needs and supply according to the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).
AHURI's managing director Dr Michael Fotheringham said the issue wasn't something solved by housing hacks or short-term fixes.
"Realistically we're not going to solve this property by property, it's just not that simple," he said.
"Part of that is that for every property there's two households affected ... the tenants and the landlords.
"Some of the things governments can do are around rent assistance [which] hasn't kept up with rising costs.
"You can also put caps on rent increases to contain these runaway markets, because that's what we have right now."
Urban planning research and University of Sydney professor Nicole Gurran said: "In Australia, the way the rental housing is provided is via small landlords, who typically own only one or two properties."
"Typically overseas you have landlords … who own whole buildings, or own multiple properties.
"That's not necessarily better or worse, but it's a difference."
She said in the long term, state governments needed to boost availability of social housing and security of renters.
"[They can] look at the rental regulations and the protections for renters to make people renting in the private sector a lot more secure," she said.
"They need to be protected from unfair evictions and rent hikes."
Another important factor, according to Mr Patterson Ross, is fixing the culture around housing.
"Most of the investors in property, almost none of them, have come into the industry thinking they are providing an essential service to the community," he said.
"Not only have they not come in with that mindset, there's no training or licensing or barrier to entry to providing this service, which is incredibly unusual.
"Every food vendor has a food vendor license; they've had to apply for it and to agree to certain terms. We don't have any of that level of oversight [for housing].
"Fundamentally, it's [about] convincing these investors to get on board with a new social contract or giving management to someone who does accept it."
