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It’s the second month in a row the national vacancy rate has remained steady, in what Domain has also noted as an “annual stabilisation”.
Domain’s Vacancy Rates Report August 2023 noted that while it continues to be a challenging and competitive environment for tenants, the recent stabilisation has enabled marginal improvements across some cities.
Dr Nicola Powell, the group’s chief of research and economics, acknowledged the latest results offer “a level of consistency we haven’t seen since April”.
“Good news for renters as things are beginning to stabilise, with vacancy rates just slightly higher than the tight conditions we faced in early 2023. However, it’s important to note that Australia still maintains a landlord’s market,” she stated.
With the national vacancy rate sitting at 0.9 per cent, it’s the same story across Australia’s regional and capital markets, with both combined capitals and combined regionals also reporting a rental vacancy rate of 0.9 per cent for the month of August 2023.
Looking at each Australian capital city over the month, Perth and Adelaide reported the lowest rental vacancy rates, sitting at 0.3 per cent apiece.
Darwin reported a rental vacancy rate of 0.7 per cent for the month of August, followed shortly behind by Brisbane, which touted a rental vacancy rate of 0.8 per cent over the same period.
Sydney reported a rental vacancy rate of 1 per cent, which was on par with Melbourne (1 per cent). Hobart fared slightly better at 1.1 per cent.
Canberra reported the highest rental vacancy rate for the period, at 1.7 per cent.
Turning attention to rental listings, Domain noted a 1.8 per cent decrease over a 12-month period, following on from an uptick seen last month (which also looked at 12 months of data).
Dr Powell outlined that “the situation varies from city to city, with Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Canberra showing positive annual improvements in rental listings”.
Across the country, there were 21,588 vacant rentals.
Numbers were down by -6.0 per cent in Sydney, while in Melbourne, vacant rental numbers were down by a whopping -32.3 per cent.
Perth and Darwin were the only other cities to see the volume of vacant rentals drop by -15.2 per cent and -0.8 per cent, respectively.
As flagged by Dr Powell, Brisbane (28 per cent), Adelaide (15.7 per cent) and Canberra (62.2 per cent) all saw noticeable boosts to their availability of vacant rentals.
Their growth was dwarfed by Hobart’s, which saw a massive lift in the volume of vacant rentals – by a whopping 174.8 per cent.
For the chief of research, there’s still work to be done in achieving “a more balanced market for renters”.
But in good news, she noted: “The data suggests a trend towards greater stability.”
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