2018 Renting World Cup - Group Stages

Australia has been performing better than expected at the FIFA World Cup in Russia and we've been watching, cheering and hoping we'll find a path out of the group stages. But how would we perform if countries were being judged on the way renting works in each country? We decided to try and find out!

There is not a lot of information for many countries in the World Cup, so sources are a little sketchy. We apologise in advance for any errors. For a more serious comparison of Australia to other countries, check out this recent AHURI guide. We've based the group stages on the rating given by property investor website Global Property Guide, which judges almost all 32 countries on a scale from "Extremely Pro-Landlord" to "Extremely Pro-Tenant". We have converted that to a number scale of 1 to 5. For tie breakers we've referred to the amount of public housing in the country. The full groups stage list is here. We don't necessarily agree with every referee's decision here, but that's the fun of sport!

Click for full-size!

Here is each group, zoomed in for easier reading.
Group A: Russia and Egypt make it through, leaving Saudi Arabia and Uruguay behind. Russia with a strong public housing presence looks like they may go far in the tournament.

Group B: Spain was the clear winner out of this group, with Iberian rivals Portugal only a point behind. Morocco and Iran both left to consider whether pro-landlord systems was the right playbook.

Group C: Denmark and France dominated this group, with Australia left at the bottom of the group behind Peru. Hopefully in 4 years time we'll have sorted some of the problems that kept us down this time!

Group D: Iceland and Croatia shared top spot in this low-scoring group, Iceland taking the number one spot with a relatively high 12% public housing. The group also saw the first 1 - Extremely Pro-Landlord score for Nigeria. The country actually has some strong protections on paper, but they fail to deliver when it matters.

Group E: 3 teams competed for the top spot in this pro-tenant group, but Serbia and Switzerland's higher public housing meant they edged out Costa Rica. Football powerhouses Brazil were left in last place with very few protections for tenants.

Group F: Sweden dominated this group beating out the more famously pro-tenant Germany for top spot. Mexico equaled Germany's score but Germany scraped through to the round of 16 with a higher public housing. South Korea was left behind perhaps judged unfairly for their unusual jeon-see system which sees tenants pay rent for 10 years up front.

Group G: Belgium easily won this group, with England only just holding off Panama and Tunisia. England managed to scrape through on their significant public housing numbers, but with this stock under threat, will they do the same next time?

Group H: Poland and Colombia were lucky to make it to the next round in another low-scoring group. Senegal managed to beat Japan to avoid bottom of the group status. Japan has fallen a long way since the turn of the century with GPG moving them from pro-tenant to extremely pro-landlord in the last two decades.

See you next week for the finals, tenancy fans!

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