Hossein Goudarzi and his family moved to Liverpool thinking rent in the southwestern suburb would be more affordable because it was so far from the city. After paying $385 a week for a small town house for two years, he says the family made a mistake.

Ayse Alidosti's story is similar. She moved with her nine-year-old son from Homebush to Lidcombe chasing cheaper rent, but she didn't find it. She now pays nearly $360 a week - "nearly all my money" - for a semi in Lidcombe with routine rent increases.

These migrants' friends and family in Iran and Turkey, respectively, think they are lucky to live in a postcard-pretty city like Sydney. But a glossy photo of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge hung on the wall of Salvation Army's Auburn office where they both volunteer is usually as close as they can afford to get to the harbour's glittering prizes.

 

Goudarzi and Alidosti represent the dark side of the housing boom. Speculation by investors in Sydney's west has created a nearly uninterrupted belt of disadvantage of skyrocketing rent and falling home ownership in battler suburbs stretching 35 km west and south west from Marrickville and Campsie to St Johns Park, Merrylands, Liverpool and Lumeah.

These disadvantaged suburbs form a solid block containing 40 of Australia's 177 most disadvantaged suburbs, finds new research by Professor Katherine Hulse of Swinburne University for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

In contrast to a 51.5 per cent increase in median rents over the past 10 years across Sydney, private renters in Wiley Park have seen rents rise 125 per cent to around $450 a week. It's the same story in Canley Vale where rents have risen 95 per cent  to $390 a week; Bonnyrigg, up 98.3 per cent to $460 a week; Marrickville 91.4 per cent to $670;  Granville up 89.4 per cent to $445 a week; Lakemba, up 91 per cent to $500, and Auburn up 100 per cent to $480 a week, finds new data from the Domain Group. Housing prices in these suburbs have also risen faster than Sydney's average, with the median house in Canley Vale, for example, rising 55.9 per cent to $580,000 in the past 10 years.

Professor Hulse attributes the cause to buyers heading west to buy investment properties because prices are lower relative to other parts of the city and in anticipation of capital gain and high rental returns because rents have moved closer to city medians.

Traditionally battlers - including those on low incomes and migrants such as Alidosti - have moved west willing to trade-off longer commutes and poor amenities in exchange for cheaper rent. But now they are facing increasing rents and in some cases, the additional costs and inconvenience in living in locations which may have relatively poor transport, services, facilities, etc.

The clustering of these suburbs of disadvantage was significant. "Instead of disadvantage being dispersed, is it clustered in areas that limit people's life chances."

It's increasingly a tale of two Sydneys, one rich and one poor, warns Professor Bill Randolph, director of the City Futures Research Centre at the University of NSW.  "These are the people who are paying for pensions of baby boomers," he said.

His research shows a 82 per cent drop in the number of poor people living within 10 kilometres of Sydney's centre since 1986, and an 80 per cent rise in those living 10 to 19 km away, and 139 per cent increase in those living 20 to 29 km away.

Not everyone in these suburbs was disadvantaged, stressed Professor Hulse pointing to many vibrant communities. But these areas had higher rates of unemployment, more early school leavers, old and young people. Not only had rents gone up, the number of private rentals had risen while those in public housing had fallen. Outright home ownership had dropped below the Sydney average and home purchaser rates lagged. 

In 13 years in Sydney, Ms Alidosti has visited Sydney's CBD twice for window shopping. For Mr Goudarzi, who has travelled into the city a few times, it is noticeably more expensive, from the fares to the coffee and the shops.

"We are a happy family here, it is so safe, so peaceful," said the former naval officer from Iran. "But without money it is difficult." He is at a loss about where to find more affordable housing. Then he suggests somewhere farther west: Orange.

One fear is that Sydney's poor and those struggling with housing costs have been moved out of the gaze of policy makers, said Dr Chris Martin, senior policy at the Tenants Union of Australia.

"The fact that it is geographically concentrated, some people won't see the households who pay more than 30 per cent to 50 per cent in rent, and who skip meals and who don't send kids on school excursions and don't see the dentist, and all the things that people do in serious numbers when they are paying unaffordable rents."

Dr Martin said the median price point for rents was $200 a week 10 years ago. Now the most common per cent was around $400 a week.

"That's what our housing system has delivered to lower income households, particularly renters who are priced out of owner occupation.

"The problem lies in the way Australian society - literally a million other households --- have decided to accumulate wealth and try to fund retirements and that is by speculating on housing," he said.

with Toby Johnstone