After studying economics in Australia for nearly two years, Ly had expected his rent to rise amid the ongoing housing crisis – but the immensity of the reality surprised him nonetheless.
“Rents have risen by a lot,” Ly, a 21-year-old Vietnamese student at RMIT University in Melbourne, told VnExpress International.
Prices were already high when Ly arrived in Australia in 2022, and the number of international students seeking accommodation was also
already rising.
With the financial support of his family, Ly could afford to rent a two-bedroom studio near his school for slightly over AU$300 (US$196.44) per week.
But by the end of 2023, the cost had risen to nearly 36% to AU$410 per week.
Some of his fellow international students took a long time to find affordable housing and settle in for the
school year, he said.
Ly and his friends are among droves of international students across popular study abroad destinations like Australia, the U.K., Germany and Canada who are struggling to find accommodation amid the dwindling housing supply that comes with decade-high
rental rates.
The student housing shortage is growing and is especially acute in the Canadian cities of Edmonton and Montreal, as well as other cities across Europe.
The supply of Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) in Europe, Australia, and Canada is not meeting demand due mainly to a “slow construction pipeline,” according to research firm BONARD’s 2023 Student Housing Annual Report, as quoted by international education website ICEF Monitor.
Source: Vnexpress
