Why Australia has a rental squeeze

Wednesday 15 October 2025

The latest batch of rental data from Cotality and SQM Research suggests that Australia’s rental market has tightened.

As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, Cotality reported a capital city vacancy rate of 1.5% in September, which was 0.4% lower than a year ago and the lowest vacancy rate on record:

The number of homes listed for rent across the combined capital cities is also the lowest on record:

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.