When Lachie and Molly McLean first began to talk about getting married, they knew they'd have to make some hard decisions about where they'd want to live.
Both school chaplains in their 20s, they loved their jobs and wanted to make sure they could continue doing the work they believed in well into the future.
They also knew that would make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to afford to buy a house.
"We wanted our own space but we couldn't afford our own space in the traditional sense," Mr McLean said.
"But we also didn't want to give up this work we're passionate about and sort of climb the corporate ladder."
Wary of taking on a mortgage, but not wanting to continue living in increasingly precarious share-house situations, the couple made the decision to exit the rental market completely, purchasing a tiny house at the start of 2021.
Measuring 7.2 metres long and 2.4 metres wide, their new home is parked on a friend's acreage, giving them easy access to amenities but shielding them from Queensland's skyrocketing rental market.
A loft bedroom gives them space to stretch out and sleep, while another raised platform functions as a study — if the person in the lounge below doesn't mind their spouse's feet sticking through the ceiling.
The first night they spent in their tiny house was "surreal", Mr McLean said.
"We'd watched so many YouTube videos [of tiny houses], but had never actually been in one," he said.
"The reality of 'We actually own this' — it was a really weird feeling. We didn't expect to own a house for many years. It was like we'd stepped 10 years into the future."
While the COVID-19 pandemic made things tricky at times — they spent at least five weeks inside during lockdowns or isolation, with personal space in short supply — the couple were overwhelmingly satisfied with their decision.
The fact the rent on their share house rose from $350 a week to "$450 or $500" immediately following their departure only served to reinforce that satisfaction, he said.
Rent squeeze shows no sign of easing
While the McLeans are pleased with the outcome in their case, their story of being pushed out of the rental market is increasingly common — and not everyone lands on their feet.
Most local and state governments around Australia don't allow people to live in tiny houses as their primary residence, and even the staunchest advocates for small-space living admit the lifestyle isn't for everyone.
What was once considered primarily an inner-city issue is also now affecting communities nationwide.
The pandemic saw average rents soar in regional areas as people left city accommodation to have more space during lockdowns and take advantage of the chance to work from home.
CoreLogic data shows annual rental growth for regional areas, including houses and units, was at 10.8 per cent for the 12 months to June, compared to 9.1 per cent for capital cities, with the average rent for a unit in a regional area sitting at $463.
Meanwhile, average wages rose 2.6 per cent in the year to June, according to the ABS — their steepest rise in almost eight years.
Affordable vacant rentals in short supply
While experts are divided on how best to tackle Australia's housing crisis, they tend to identify the same cause of spiralling rents: There simply isn't enough supply.
Australia's national rental vacancy rate (properties on the rental market for more than three weeks) dropped to 0.9 per cent in July — the lowest level on record.
The situation for renters is even worse when it comes to affordable vacant rental properties.
Anglicare's 2022 Rental Affordability Snapshot found only five rentals out of more than 45,000 listings across Australia that could be considered affordable for a single person on JobSeeker — all rooms in share houses.
Heather Shearer, a research fellow at Griffith University's Cities Research Institute, believes there's simply a "disconnect" between the rental housing that is available and what's needed — and Australia's historically buoyant property market, which has only just begun to ease, is partly to blame.
"The more expensive [property prices] are, you end up with relatively higher-income people still renting, so they're pushing people out consecutively down the tree," Dr Shearer said.
"People who can't afford to pay $400 per week are being pushed out onto the street."
That's not to say there aren't any empty properties.
About 1 million dwellings were unoccupied on census night in 2021, many of them concentrated in wealthier areas such as seaside towns where their owners offer them as short-term rentals via apps such as Airbnb.
Michael Fotheringham, managing director at the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, says Australia needs to move away from encouraging short-term renting.
"The states can probably impose levies, but there needs to be a national discussion," he said.
"There are tax concessions for investment properties. Should [short-term rental] properties be exempt from that?"
Experts call for more social housing, urban density — but that will take time
Tim Lawless, research director at CoreLogic Asia Pacific, said the current situation in Australia, where virtually all rental housing was owned by the private sector, might soon have to change.
"If the government's serious about tackling rental affordability, it comes back to either incentivising investment, which is quite difficult given the split that creates in voter opinion, or stepping up the public spend on social and community housing," he said.
"It's good to see some baby steps towards funding more social housing with the new government … but it's nowhere near enough to what's needed."
Australians used to living in suburbs filled with low-set homes on spacious blocks might also have to accept a level of change if calls to fill in the "missing middle" — the suburbs that stretch from just outside city centres to the outskirts — are taken up.
"The notion that every Australian household should have a quarter-acre block and a Hills hoist out the back is from a different time," Dr Fotheringham said.
"If you try to do that with 25 million people, well, you're talking about some long commutes."
Researchers say there's a huge opportunity for more urban density to be embraced in Australia without expanding cities into greenfield areas and having to build the requisite services and transport infrastructure.
"It doesn't have to be about building high-rises, either," Dr Shearer said.
"In our middle-ring suburbs, about 10 kilometres from our city centres, there's lots and lots of properties that could be sustainably densified to make it easier for, say, granny flats or tiny houses."
Filling the gaps in the rental market
Australian Tiny House Association president Janine Strachan is also looking for a more lenient approach to zoning.
"The challenge we've got as an association and an industry is tiny houses are not uniformly accepted across the country. They're deemed caravans in most jurisdictions," Ms Strachan said.
"In WA it's shocking because [unless you're in a caravan park or camping ground] you're only technically allowed to live in a caravan for three days out of 28."
She's advocating for the legalisation of tiny house "parking spots", which would see landholders lease out a spot on their property to tiny house owners or renters for much less per week than full-sized houses currently on the rental market.
"It might be for people who want to downsize from their primary residence, or people who want to get some extra equity to assist them in their retirement years," she said.
"Certainly the gen Xers and millennials that can't get into the market but don't want to keep wasting their money on rent paying off someone else's property."
The McLeans believe their tiny house is a stopgap solution to a problem governments ultimately need to address.
"Things like this can work in the space between now and what needs to happen," Mr McLean said.
"But I imagine we could have a beautiful [social housing] system like in Singapore or Scandinavia.
"When housing is a right, people can pursue what they want to, whether it's to focus more on the job they're good at or art or their family.
"Everyone needs access to affordable housing, but it shouldn't inform every other aspect of your life."
