Population growth picking up
With slow housing supply and high population growth it's not too surprising that rental vacancy rates remain close to record lows.
Net permanent and long-term arrivals have been increasing all year, and rose further to hit +468,390 over the year to September 2025, not all that far below the all-time highs seen in 2024.
Short-term arrivals also finally recovered to be above 2019 levels in September, so the housing shortage is almost certainly worsening still.
SQM Research reported a 1.3 per cent residential property vacancy rate for Sydney in October, with Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart, and Darwin all recording vacancy rates of 1 per cent or below.
The national residential vacancy rate was steady at 1.2 per cent.
Asking rents only rose 0.2 per cent over the past month, according to SQM's asking rents index, but remained 4.6 per cent higher over the year.
Housing finance rips
The ABS reported the housing finance statistics for the September quarter, with the number of investment loans rising 13.6 per cent to a new high.
Source: ABS
Reported the ABS:
"The total value of new investment loans was $39.8 billion in the September quarter, a rise of 17.6 per cent ($6.0 billion). The average loan size rose by $11,686 to $685,634 over the quarter."
The average mortgage size in New South Wales was $49,000 higher over the year, to hit a record high of $848,000.
One might expect this to catch the attention of the market regulator, albeit interest rate expectations have pared back since September, while Macquarie Bank and NAB have also already cut back on (or cut out) housing investor lending to trusts and companies.
The Treasury modelling on housing prices under the deposit guarantee looks a bit light.
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