Sky News host Liz Storer says landlords will be “forced” to fork out money under Victorian Labor’s new proposal over rental energy efficiencies.

The Victorian government’s new rental laws, forcing landlords to spend thousands upgrading the energy efficiency of their properties, will backfire on tenants through higher rents and a much smaller housing pool, experts are warning.

They will also force many cash-strapped ‘mum and dad’ type investors out of the Victorian property market.

Former national president of the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) Max Shifman said already strict tenancy rules, big land taxes and high mortgage interest rates had combined to see “landlords exit Victoria faster than anywhere else in the country”.

The Allan government’s recently announced energy efficiency rental rules would only speed that exodus up, he said.

“While these changes have merit, we should not pretend they come at no upfront cost — cash which many smaller landlords may not have or want to spend,” Mr Shifman, who is also CEO of one of Australia’s largest property developers, Intrapac, said.

“These extra charges could well be the straw for the proverbial camel’s back, for another round of landlords to exit the state … this can only lead to a reduced rental housing pool, spiking rents and hurting renters.”

Meanwhile, property law expert Andre Ong described the new Allan government regulations set to come into force in October next year as “another whack” for Victorian landlords, who were also struggling with rising cost of living.

Although the upgrades property owners would have to make under the new rules were reasonable — and would likely cost just a few thousand dollars — for some of his smaller landlord clients it could be enough to make them decide renting out was becoming too costly and just too much trouble, Mr Ong, the principal at Sharrock Pitman Legal principal and an accredited Victorian property law specialist, said.

Many Victorian landlords may opt to sell, faced with having to make upgrades to their properties.

Many of his clients were small investors with just one or two rental properties, who were trying to build a nest egg for their own and their families’ futures, he said.

For some it was a retirement plan.