People who rent and own pets must overcome hurdles to securing housing. Many properties prohibit pets, and pet owners may be at a competitive disadvantage even when applying for properties that putatively accept pets. With new rental laws around pet ownership coming into effect in the ACT, we analysed the sentiment towards pet ownership from twelve months of rental advertisements from the territory. Our analysis demonstrates the opacity of the rental market for
people who rent with pets, as well as a notable ‘agent effect’, suggesting that anti-pet positions in rental advertisements do not necessarily reflect lessor preferences.