Renter revolution

In the next 20 years, $5.4tn will be passed down from baby boomers to younger generations in what the Guardian has termed the ‘age of inheritance’. Much of this is likely to end up buying houses, which means a lot of new landlords.

Landlords are an easy target. Sometimes it's unfair - most landlords are fair and reasonable, and any anger around the role of passive income in entrenching inequality is much better directed at systemic structures.

But some don’t help the cause. 

A property owner in Heathcote (a place that Trip Advisor’s only highlights are the national park and a pub one reviewer says is “not really a place to go out of your way to visit”) attempted to charge $430 a week for a 60m² granny flat but demanded that any potential tenant be “preferably single”. 

Another provided a list of rules to tenants paying $2400 every seven days, which included perhaps the most confusing interpretation of when a week starts and ends since that weird bit between Christmas and New Year. 

And a third refused to install a shower grab rail to help a seriously ill tenant because it would “ruin the aesthetics” of the ensuite bathroom.

The next few months are likely to see an increasingly divisive battle over capital gains tax reforms. The Cave, of course, does not take a position on such things. But should measures be taken that help even the playing field, it does know Heathcote Hotel does a glass of bubbles for just $8.50. Which may just be worth going out of your way to visit, after all.