The Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) is calling on the new Labor Government to make Australia’s rental crisis a priority.

PIPA chair Nicola McDougall says with the number of rental properties at record lows, the situation is likely to worsen in coming months.

“Investors have been mostly missing from the property market since well before the last Federal Election, predominantly due to nationwide investment lending restrictions, but also because of the political posturing on negative gearing during the previous election campaign,” she says.

McDougall says while investor activity returned to historical averages in March this year, not enough time had elapsed to make up for the shortfall of the past five years.

New data from Proptrack shows vacancy rates and rents are at record highs, with no sign of easing in the short term. The data on vacancies is confirmed by other sources, including Domain and SQM Research, with most capital cities recording vacancy rates below 1%.