Source: Australian Property Journal
RENTAL vacancy rates fell to 1.6% over October, with Sydney and Melbourne pulling the country down to this decade low.
According to the latest data from SQM Research, the national residential property rental vacancy rate fell from 1.7% in September or 59,953 vacancies to 59,345 vacancies a rate not seen since March 2011.
Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Darwin remained largely steady and below 1.0%, at 0.6%, 0.6%, 0.8% and 0.7% respectively.
While Sydney fell from 2.7% in September to 2.6% for October, Melbourne fell from 3.5% to 3.3% and Hobart from 0.5% to 0.4%, with Brisbane remaining stable at 1.4%.
“Other capital cities were largely steady and that was also the case for a number of the regional townships, albeit regional Australia really has not much room to fall lower,” said Louis Christopher, managing director of SQM Research.
“Indeed a number of regional towns are now recording no vacancies whatsoever.”
Christopher added that both Melbourne and Sydney’s CBDs have shown improvement over the month, despite still remaining elevated.
Nationally, asking rents were up by 0.4% for houses at $537 per week, while units were up by 1% to $412 per week. With capital city rents up 0.2% for houses to $582 per week and rents rose by 0.5% to $424 per week.
Weekly rents in Sydney were up over the month with house rents increasing by 0.4% and unit rents by 0.9%, compared to the same time in 2020 house rents are up 12.5%, while units are up 4.4%.
The opposite was true in Melbourne for October, with both house and unit rents falling by 0.3%, while house rents rose marginally by 1.7% compared to the same time last year and units fell by 4.3%.
“Melbourne CBD rents have actually held steady over the same period. If we really are at the point where lockdowns are a thing of the past in this country, then it is likely the CBD locations will recover for property owners in 2022,” added Christopher.
In Brisbane, house rents rose to 1.0% over the month, with unit rents falling by 0.6%. Meanwhile for the year house rents were up 14.2% and unit rents were up 4.5%.
Perth remained relatively steady for October, with house rents falling by 0.1% and units rising by 0.7%. Over the year house rents were up 10.4% and units 11.2%.
In Adelaide house rents increased by 0.5% and units fell by 1.9%, while compared to the same time in 2020 houses rose by 9.2% and units by 7.8%.
Canberra house rents were up 0.4% over the month, while units rose by 1.4%. The last 12 months saw a 13.9% increase for house rents and an 8.7% gain for units.
Darwin recorded a 2.5% increase for house rents over the month and a 0.6% decline for units, with houses up 14.4% for the year and units recording the greatest increase nationally at 23.5%.
Finally, Hobart recorded a 4.9% increase house rents over the month, with a 1.7% decline for units. While house rents were up 14.8% compared to the same time in 2020 and units were up 10.0%.
