By Leith van Onselen

As shown above, vacancies fell or were stable across most jurisdictions in September, with Brisbane and Darwin the exceptions.

The commodities bust continues to weigh heavily on Perth, with the vacancy rate at 4.9%, up 1.2% over the year. Brisbane, too, is experiencing rising rental vacancies (up 0.4% YoY to 3.0%), whereas Darwin’s has retraced from elevated levels (down 0.3% YoY to 3.2%).

By contrast, rental vacancies in Melbourne (down 0.4% YoY to 1.9%), Sydney (up 0.1% YoY at 1.7%), Adelaide (up 0.1% YoY to 2.0%), Hobart (down 0.6% YoY to 0.5%) and Canberra (down 0.8% YoY to 1.0%) are relatively tight.

SQM Research also released its asking rents data for the week ended 12 November 2016, which again recorded annual falls in rents in Perth, Darwin, and Brisbane which have held down asking rents nationally. Rental growth in Adelaide is also quite weak, whereas it is strong in Canberra and Hobart, and solid in Sydney and Melbourne:

According to SQM Research’s managing director, Louis Christopher:

“Asking rents have slipped back in Brisbane as vacancy rates have continued to rise this year. At 3.0%, the rental market is finally favouring tenants and given the surge in new apartment supply, rents in Brisbane could continue to fall from here, particularly in the inner city.

“Vacancies are likely to rise in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney over 2017 as more new high-rise apartment developments come onto the market. However, we believe that oversupply will largely be limited to inner-city areas where apartment supply is rising the most, which will temper rental growth,” he said.

Rental vacancies fell in October