Lockdown redux
It looks like Melbourne is heading for yet another lockdown, with the latest cluster of COVID cases reportedly climbing to about 25 overnight.
There's no easy way to measure this, but there's no logical reason to believe this won't lead to a further exodus from Melbourne.
South-east Queensland and many regional and coastal cities are already absolutely groaning under the weight of both interstate and intrastate movers, and the looming lockdown announcement will likely add fuel to the fire.
It sounds like this time around Melbournians are quickly scooting across the border towards Sydney (and after the previous iterations of Victorian lockdowns dragged on for so long, who can blame them?).
Property trends
This will likely have a twofold impact on rental markets.
According to SQM Research figures, Sydney's vacancy rate peaked at 3.7 per cent in September 2020 - impacted by the lack of international students and tourism - and has been easing since then, back down to 3.4 per cent as cheaper inner-city unit rents have successfully lured in tenants.
Melbourne's vacancy rate suddenly spiked to 4.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2021, following hard on the back of previous restrictions.
There were more than 25,000 Melbourne vacancies in April 2021 (down from 27,300 in March), but this figure could quite feasibly now jump higher again.
On the other hand, the Melbourne exodus underway will add to the rental market pressures being experienced across much of the rest of Australia.
Let's hope for some better virus news over the next week.
