Queensland's landlord lobby says its members are being forced to pay "huge" and "unfair" taxes because their land values have increased so much.
Property Owners Association of Queensland vice-president Alexandra Dapontes is petitioning the government for more land tax concessions as values continue to skyrocket.
"Technically speaking, the landlords are rich on paper, but guess what? You cannot go to the supermarket and buy your food with bricks," Ms Dapontes said.
"You need money.
"Certain members of our organisation have sold off whole blocks of flats, or they turn them into Airbnbs.
"There are a lot of homeless people sleeping in tents in Brisbane which is very, very sad, and the government could assist by increasing the land tax threshold."
Currently, landlords do not have to pay any land tax if the value of their land is less than $600,000.
Ms Dapontes said she wanted to see the land tax exemption threshold increase by 200 per cent, from $600,000 to $1.8 million.
The threshold has remained unchanged since 2008.
Landowners do not have to pay land tax if they live on that land.
Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick did not comment when contacted by the ABC.
Tenants Queensland chief executive Penny Carr said it seemed "reasonable" for landlords to pay more tax if the value of their land had increased.
She said it was untrue to suggest if a landlord sold their investment properties it could worsen the housing crisis.
"It's a falsity to say that if an investor sells the property there's going to be a tighter market, because the house is not going to disappear," Ms Carr said.
"The house will remain and someone else will buy it, either an investor or an owner-occupier."
According to Queensland Treasury, only 17,556 properties were subjected to land tax in 2022-23, or less than 30 per cent of all rental properties.
Ms Dapontes said land tax was a big expense for landlords, but they were also dealing with increases in council rates, water bills, insurance premiums, and maintenance costs.
She said Queensland's stage one and stage two proposed rental reforms, which would introduce a range of tenant protections such as capping the number of rent hikes and ending rent bidding, were another "unfair" burden adding to stress on landlords.
"A lot of landlords feel very stressed and anxious about the oppressive rental tenancy laws, which are continuing to come out in different stages," Ms Dapontes said.
"It's absolutely very oppressive that if a landlord doesn't repair, or hasn't got the funds to repair a rental property, then they're going to get prosecuted.
"I think [that for] landlords that don't maintain the rental properties it's because they don't have the funds to maintain them and then it gets too much, and obviously properties age."
But Ms Carr said it was fair that landlords were required to fix their properties.
She said the recent tenancy law reforms were also reasonable.
"There's never been any tenancy law reform which improves the situation for renters that the real estate or property industry doesn't oppose," Ms Carr said.
"They often say it's going to be the end of people's ability to invest in property and the sky's going to fall, and it never happens."
She said she would like to see more tenant protections, such as capping rent hikes to CPI and banning arbitrary evictions.
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