Vacancies steady
The national residential vacancy rate was steady at 2.3 per cent in July 2019, the same level as in June.
A year earlier the vacancy rate was modestly lower at 2.2 per cent.
Ergo, the greatest ever construction boom in Australia has to date failed to materially move vacancy rates higher, due to the very strong rate of population growth at around 405,000 per annum.
Only Sydney, where there has been a spate of recent completions, has seen much of an increase in vacancy rates.
Vacancies were steady in Sydney (3½ per cent) and Melbourne (2 per cent) in July, and declined modestly in most other capital cities.
Greater Sydney's population is growing at about 100,000 per annum, but there is a glut of new stock to be absorbed in some of the harbour city's sub-regions.
Vacancy rates are tight in Hobart, Canberra, and Adelaide, and are tightening from a more elevated level in Brisbane and Perth.
Asking rents are now rising for both houses and units in Brisbane, after a soft few years.
The Reserve Bank of Australia has highlighted that we're now underbuilding relative to the rate of population growth, and thus we're now heading for a supply shortage, teeing off the next upswing.
Housing prices are now up for the past quarter, especially in Sydney (+1 per cent), and Melbourne.
