Rental crisis easing a touch?
Rental vacancies were stone dead flat in Sydney in April, at 12,758, according to SQM Research's latest figures.
Melbourne recorded a modest rise from 12,400 to 12,655 vacancies, though this still meant a flat result in percentage terms for the Victorian capital at 1.9 per cent.
This was driven by a jump in rental vacancies in the CBD, where the vacancy rate gapped a bit higher from 2.4 per cent to 2.9 per cent.
Brisbane also recorded a flat result at a 0.7 per cent vacancy rate.
The trend in the major capital cities may still be down, despite flat results for the month.
All other capital cities, which have seen extremely tight rental markets in recent months, recorded an increase in vacancy rates in April.
This is the first time we've seen an increase in rental vacancies in 2022, with the national residential rental vacancy rate increasing slightly from 1 per cent to 1.1 per cent, according to SQM Research.
Certainly in my neck of the woods (Noosa) there has been some tenant pushback against surging rents, and some properties are lying empty as a result.
Asking rents have increased 20 per cent year-on-year for housing in Sydney, Brisbane, and Adelaide, and 10 to 15 per cent elsewhere, according to SQM's asking rents index.
It's worth noting that not all markets have seen such strong increases, and there may be something of a base effect in these numbers (i.e. in many cases rents went down, and now are going back up again).
Source: SQM Research
Overall, there may be some easing of the rental crisis underway, but it hasn't stopped landlords raising asking rents by another 1.4 per cent over the past 30 days, according to SQM Research.
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The RBA released its May Meeting Board Minutes this morning.
It appears that if the wage price index figures are strong tomorrow the cash rate target could well be lifted by 40 basis points in June, to 0.75 per cent...but let's see.
