Canberra vacancies tighten again
July is a seasonally soft month for rental markets, and Sydney recorded a 2.5 per cent vacancy rate in July, well up from 2.2 per cent a year earlier, according to My Housing Market figures.
On the other hand, internal migration is soaking up the supply in Brisbane, according to My Housing Market commentary.
Brisbane's often-discussed unit vacancies were considerably lower year-on-year at 2.3 per cent, down from 3.1 per cent last year.
I did some groundwork on this last week for a forthcoming news article with an international financial newspaper, and it was pretty interesting to see what's going down first hand.
The quality new inner city apartment stock in Brisbane - by which I mean the stuff that is actually built with a view to people to living in it - is now essentially fully occupied (very recent completions excepted).
However, some of the lower grade 'investor apartment' towers with views over car parks and main roads still have dozens of vacancies to be filled.
And it was quite apparent from discussions with rental roll managers in these blocks that negotiations on price were the order of the day for 12-month leases (often 4 weeks of free rent is a given), with free internet and other goodies readily up for grabs.
Just as a property price boom is characterised by even the dross selling quickly, the rental market won't be considered tight until the inferior apartment stock is fully rented out.
Source: My Housing Market
Canberra's vacancy rates just keep on dropping, now down to just 1 per cent from 1.2 per cent at the same time last year.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with land tax, as I'm regularly assured on social media, which is good to know!
You can catch Doc Wilso's market commentary at LinkedIn here.
