The rental market is competitive in the capital cities. Credit:Janie Barrett And it's clear who is winning. Despite banks tightening investor loan criteria, lending to investors is again pushing up against the bank regulator's 10 per cent annual growth speed limit. Meanwhile, first home buyers are in retreat. After signing one in three of all new home loans in 2009, first time buyers signed just one in seven loans written last December. Outbid and out borrowed, young Australians are staying longer than ever in the rental housing market, where life is far from peaceful.

A survey of renters released last week by consumer group Choice, National Shelter and an alliance of tenant unions unearthed widespread fear of eviction. The Reserve Bank's new assistant governor economic, Luci Ellis, also weighed into the debate last week. According to Ellis, almost one in five renters moved more than five times in the past decade – that's once every two years. "I question whether all those moves by renters were desired by those households. Many renters are happy with their current home, but are required to move because the lease expired or the landlord sold the property." "If we are concerned about inequality of housing outcomes, perhaps we should focus less on the type of tenure, and more on security of tenure."

Amen Ellis. So here it is, my simple four-point manifesto to help improve the lives of Generation Rent: 1. Abolish "no grounds" evictions Simply advocating longer leases than the standard six or 12-month period is not the answer, risking trapping renters in bad living situations. A better solution, according to tenants unions, is to remove the "no grounds" provision that allows landlords to evict tenants for no reason – albeit only when the fixed lease has expired and with standard notice periods applying. To protect owners, the allowable grounds for eviction should be widened and made more explicit, including if the property is sold, or if an owner is moving back in. But landlords should not have the power to evict for no reason, as this is often the way problematic tenants – including those who ask for repairs or those with complex needs – are dealt with.

2. Wind back property tax breaks Of course, the main structural problem creating headaches for tenants is the cottage industry nature of rental housing service providers, aka landlords. While there are many considerate landlords, there are also many owners who are far more interested in the capital gain they will get for their retirement than providing a professional service for their tenants. Our current tax system treats rental houses more as tax shelters than as providing dignified shelter for humans. There are many options for reform, but two of my favourite include limiting negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions to just one investment property per Australian and increasing the period you must hold the property before qualifying for the concessions to five years, up from 12 months currently, which would provide more stability for tenants of those properties. 3. More transparency on 'bad tenants lists' According to Choice, half of renters fear being reported to one of the many privately run databases of "bad tenants". And with good reason. Operators of these databases make money by selling this information to real estate agents. They have a vested interest in having as large a database as possible. It is all too easy for landlords to make spurious listings.

Often renters only find out about this when they go to lease a new property. Real estate agents are required by law to tell prospective tenants if their name shows up on a database, but agents rarely do this, instead skipping on to the next candidate. Database operators should be required to notify renters immediately if they have been listed and give adequate opportunity to appeal the listing before it is made known to real estate agents. Personal information should be accessible online and for free (currently many databases require tenants to send cash by snail mail to get a response). 4. More funding for tenant advocates Tenant unions run on the smell of an oily rag. Meanwhile billions of dollars of renters' bond money sits in government coffers earning interest, which is used to fund other government spending. A greater chunk of this income stream should be directed towards helping renters know about their rights and access legal advice. For too long, renters have been left out of the national conversation about housing affordability. It's time our voices were heard.