From the Media Release:
Nationally, the vacancies rose by 0.1%, bringing the national vacancy rate to 2.0% in April. This is the first time that national vacancies have reached the 2% mark excluding seasonal months (December) since September 2009, suggesting that the rental crisis is truly beginning to ease.
SQM Research believes that this is a result of a recovery in the Australian housing market, with vacancies beginning to ease in several localities compared to this time last year, particularly in Canberra, Perth and Darwin based on an increased number of renters becoming buyers. We expect this to continue when a rise in first home buyers occurs, as they exit the rental market in favour of purchasing their first home.
Louis Christopher, Managing Director of SQM Research says “While the rental market is unlikely to blow out to an oversupply situation in this cycle, we do believe an easing of what has been an extended period of tight conditions for tenants, will now come into existence. It means rent rises which have been running at above inflation for the past five years now, will now slowdown to be more in line with CPI and indeed this is already occurring according to our newly released weekly rents index”.
According to SQM’s Weekly Rents Index, national capital city rents for houses fell by 0.6% in the past 90 days to $521 a week and units rose by 0.5% over the same period to $413 a week. Rental growth for houses has slowed down to a 1.0% over the 12 months while units have increased by 2.5%. More information on SQM’s rents series can be found here.
