This research investigates the role of private rental brokerage in supporting housing outcomes for vulnerable households in the private rental market.

Private Rental Brokerage Programs (PRBPs) are found across Australia's system of housing supports and share similar aims (to assist low income, vulnerable clients to access and sustain private rental market tenancies) and have common, key characteristics: adaptability and responsiveness to local client and market needs. 

Currently, private rental brokerage is not identified as a housing assistance measure in national data or research collections, including those managed by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. It remains an unexplored facet of the shift to private renting in the housing research literature. 

PRBPs appear to be successful in assisting 'rental ready' clients to access tenancies in the private rental market. Assessing a client’s rental readiness was a key professional skill for PRBP workers, critical both to successful tenancy outcomes and the ongoing cooperation of market stakeholders. Many agencies were only funded to assist clients deemed already ‘rental ready’. Others could help clients reach that point, provided the client did not have high or complex needs. 

Agencies expressed the view that it was very challenging, if not impossible, to assist clients with high needs into private rental. Policy and practice implications are discussed in the research.