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PERSONAL/BUSINESS COACH | PROPERTY BUYER | ANALYST

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Tuesday, 13 May 2025

Seasonal softness in the rental market

Melbourne rentals soften

The rental vacancy rate ticked up to 1.8 per cent in Melbourne in April, well up from 1.1 per cent a year earlier, on softer demand, according to SQM Research. 

Sydney also saw a modest increase in its rental vacancy rate to 1.5 per cent over the month, reflecting some of the usual winter softness in demand.

Darwin is suddenly getting tight with a rental vacancy rate of only 0.7 per cent, while Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, and Hobart all have extremely tight rental vacancy rates of 1 per cent or below. 


Net permanent and long-term immigration slowed slightly to 437,000 over the year to April.

This is well below the post-pandemic peak of 498,000, but there has been a few signs of re-acceleration over the past few months.


Asking rents increased 3.9 per cent over the year to April, which is slower than we have seen over recent years.

Tim Gurner warned today of a 15-year rental crisis looming for Australia, due to the ongoing high demand and a general lack of support for rental supply. 

Louis Christopher of SQM Research expects the rental market softness to last no more than a few months. 

You can read SQM Research's media release here.

Financial and stock markets took a good deal of solace over the past 24 hours in a 90-day pause in the US-China tariff wars, pushing bond yields to their highest level in a month. 

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