Vacancies decline
Vacancies declined again everywhere except Melbourne in August 2020, according to SQM Research.
Sydney's vacancies are well past their peak and recorded another modest decline, including in its CBD area, although even now the vacancy rates are the highest in the nation at 3½ per cent.
Sydney's CBD vacancy rate dropped from a record high of 16.9 per cent in May to 12.9 per cent.
The lowest capital city vacancy rate was still to be found in Hobart at 0.7 per cent.
In Darwin there have been so few investors and so little supply for so long that the vacancy rate dropped to just 1.1 per cent, while acknowledging the seasonality of the Top End.
Vacancy rates are now becoming tight in Canberra (0.8 per cent), Adelaide (0.9 per cent), and Perth (1.1 per cent).
Brisbane's vacancy rate declined modestly again to 2.1 per cent, well down from 2½ per cent a year earlier.
In locked down Melbourne, however, vacancies steepled to a record high for the city of 3.4 per cent.
Nationally, vacancy rates continued to declined to 2 per cent (or 69,971 vacancies) or 2.2 per cent (or 75,741 vacancies) a year earlier.
However within that figure there are disparate trends, including record high double digit vacancies rates in Melbourne's CBD, but an emerging rental shortage in many regional, coastal, and hinterland areas.
