Risks and informality in owner-occupied shared housing: to let, or not to let?

Abstract

In Australian suburbs, due to increasing housing unaffordability, informal shared housing makes up a growing private rental sub-market. At present, there is limited research exploring what dynamics may motivate owner-occupiers to initiate informal shared housing, how informality operates in this rental sub-market and how owner-occupiers with distinct ethnic and cultural backgrounds negotiate informality. Drawing on a qualitative investigation among owner-occupiers of Bangladeshi origin in different suburbs of Greater Sydney, the paper discusses a distinct form of informal shared housing that goes beyond the perceived economic rationality of rent-and-return. What our research reveals is that owner-occupiers also take into consideration the multiple risks involved in the management of these shared housing premises and how the management of these risks results in the limitation of the rental sub-market to specific ethnic communities and social groups. Our findings highlight the importance of considering social and cultural factors in rethinking the notion of home in these non-normative housing sites. We conclude with some suggestions about policy interventions that may be able to recognise the underlying logics of informal housing tenures that are informed by cultural perceptions of risk on the part of owner-occupiers.

Keywords:

• Sydney
• housing
• shared housing
• informality
• Bangladeshi owner-occupier
• migrant homemaking

Acknowledgement

We thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. We thank Emma Power for the fantastic editorial support and astute feedback throughout the process. Special thanks go to the SI editors Nicole Gurran, Sophia Maalsen and Pranita Shrestha for thoughtful feedback on an earlier version of the paper and including it in the ‘Informal Housing Research Colloquium 2019’ organised by the Urban Housing Lab, the University of Sydney. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the State of Australian Cities Conference SOAC 2019 in Perth in December 2019 by the lead author. Special thanks are also due to Bangladeshi community members in Sydney who supported the fieldwork during 2018–2020.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Mortgage stress has no single accepted definition in Australia but is often described as paying more than 30 per cent of household income in mortgage repayments and associated housing costs (AHURI, 2018).

2 ‘Ontological security’ requires an appropriate social and material environment, routine practice, a feeling of control of lives free of surveillance and opportunities for identity construction (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998).

3 The project was conducted by the first two authors (Macquarie University, Project ID: 3230).

4 In Australia the usage of the word 'suburb' is similar to the US and UK use of ‘district’ and 'neighbourhood', regardless of the distance from the city centre. Australian postcodes closely align with the boundaries of suburbs.

5 We did not ask questions regarding tax on the rental income received in cash as it was felt too sensitive a question to ask during interviews.

6 Gumtree is an online marketplace, popular among landlords and renters for informal rental listings.

7 The practice of screening women from men or strangers, as prescribed by religious norms, especially by means of a curtain.

8 ‘Off-the-grid housing stocks’ was an expression used by a participant to describe the informal sharing practice without reliance on real estate agents for rental services.

9 Roy et al. (2013) used the term ‘soft landing’ in the context of Bangladeshi cities, to describe the way rural migrants squeeze into a relative’s home before eventually moving out to rented accommodation (p. 168).

10 See TUNSW (2020b) for rights (to utilities and spaces) enjoyed by boarders, lodgers and tenants. Protections and rights vary across States and are subject to interpretation.

11 In the Bangladeshi urban context, a boarding house, colloquially termed as mess-baari, is a housing site shared by unrelated males or females.

12 There may be issues regarding development consent for the three garage-turned-units. As of October 22, 2020, one participant (P19/age37/M/LE) had demolished the garage and was finalising consent with the local council for a secondary dwelling. See Sun v Randwick City Council (2017) as an example of the contraventions.