July sees steady vacancy rate at 1.3%

SQM Research has recorded the national residential property rental vacancy rates steady at 1.3% as at the month of July 2023.

The total number of rental vacancies Australia-wide dropped marginally by 852 dwellings, bringing the count to 38,864 properties. This marks the first monthly decline since January 2023.

Sydney, Perth and Hobart recorded slight decreases in rental vacancy rates during the month, standing at 1.6%, 0.5% and 1.8% respectively. Notably, the rental vacancy rate in the Sydney CBD fell back to 5.0% after recoding recurring month on month increases since March 2023.

Darwin was the only capital city to see a monthly increase in its vacancy rate to 1.0%. During the same period, the vacancy rates for Melbourne, Brisbane, and Canberra all remained unchanged.

The majority of regional areas recorded stable rental vacancy rates. The North Coast NSW remained steady at 1.8%, and the Gold Coast Main also stayed at 1.6%. On the other hand, the Blue Mountains recorded a vacancy decrease, dropping to1.5%.

Asking rents

Over the past 30 days to 12 August 2023, the capital city asking rents rose by 1.2% with the 12- month rise standing at 18.5%. Capital City house rents rose by 1.4% and are recording 12 month increases of 16.4%, while unit rents have risen by 1.0% for the past 30 days and are higher by 20.9% for the past 12 months.

The national median weekly asking rent for combined dwelling is $578.63 a week. The capital city asking rent for combined dwelling is $675.51 a week.

The median rent for a capital city house is $773 a week while the rent for a capital city unit is $590 a week.

The most expensive rent is Sydney houses at $963.92 a week. At the same time the most affordable rent is Adelaide units at $443.43 a week. Canberra has experienced a minor decrease in rents this month, down by 0.3% for combined dwellings. Additionally, the asking rent for combined dwellings in Darwin has fallen by 1.8%, primarily driven by a significant decline of 6.8% in all units rent.

Louis Christopher, Managing Director of SQM Research said: After the slight easing in vacancies over the first half 2023, this is somewhat of a disappointing result for tenants. Clearly, acute rental shortages remain with us. And besides more people grouping together to share the burden, there is no significant solution on the horizon. Where possible I would recommend tenants consider regional areas once again if their employment Page 3 of 3 enables them to work off-site. I also encourage discussion about temporary migration caps, rather than rental caps, which will only make the rental crisis worse over the medium term. This problem has not been instigated by so called, greedy landlords. Rather, it has been driven by rampant population growth. Australia currently has, by far, the fastest growing population for any OECD country and clearly the rampant increases are currently breaching the country’s capacity to house all our people.”