Rental availability
Last week's
Building Activity stats from the ABS showed a record 248,000 dwellings under construction as at 30 June 2026, with a spate of unit projects already completing in Sydney.
By the end of September, it was possible to see the impact on rental vacancy rates.
It seems that while the previous building cycle was heavily centralised and focussed on high-rise apartment towers, this cycle is characterised by a more dispersed range of medium- and higher-density development across the capital cities and various regions (Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, etc).
Melbourne's rental vacancy rate rose to 1.9 per cent in September, and in Sydney the rental vacancy rate rose to 1.8 per cent.
Canberra had the equal-highest rental vacancy rate at 1.9 per cent, while rental markets remained very tight across the other five capital cities.
Here is a 6-month moving average chart of the rental vacancy rates across the 8 capital cities:
This should presumably mean softer rental price inflation over the next 6 to 12 months.
That said, capital city median asking rents did still rise to a record high $932/week for houses, while unit rents were also close to a record high at $673/week, according to SQM Research data.
Nationally rents were still 7.6 per cent higher than a year earlier.
The medium-term outlook
While Brisbane currently has a very tight rental market, eventually there will come a surge of project completions right across south-east Queensland, which will soften the rental market.
Sydney and Melbourne already working through their respective supply pipelines, and rental markets will soon be tight again in the eastern suburbs, lower north shore, inner west, etc.
The leading indicators show that new home sales have fallen every month since the Federal Budget, building approvals have fallen to a 7-month low, and developer insolvencies are tracking at all-time highs.
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