This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
ASKING rents ticked up across most of the country over November, with rising vacancies having little impact on the market for renters.
According to SQM Research, asking rents were up by 0.3% over November, reflecting a 14.7% increase over the last 12 months.
With house rents in capital cities up 0.6% for the month and 14.9% over the year, while unit rents were down 0.2% over the month and 14.4% over the year.
Australia’s median weekly asking rent for combined dwellings is now at $604.55/week, with the capital city asking rent for combined dwellings at $692.74/week.
Meanwhile, the median rent for a capital city house is at $803/week while the rent for capital city units was at $596/week.
The most expensive rental market was again Sydney’s house market at $1,011.29/week, with units in Adelaide were the most affordable at $439.12/week.
Sydney rents were down slightly by 0.1% over the last month.
While the asking rents for combined dwellings in Darwin again dropped, by 2.6%, largely driven by a decline of 4.9% in the rent for all houses.
“Black Friday discounts weren’t applied to asking rents across Australia, which increased slightly, but not from the demand in capital cities,” said Harry Bawa, head of property and business analytics at SQM Research.
“The North Coast in QLD, Goldfields in WA and the South Coast of NSW lead the way, showing strong growth over the month. Rising Iron Ore prices seem to be sparking more activity in the mining regions.”
At the same time, residential vacancy rates were up to 1.1% over the month with 3,164 additional vacant properties made available, bringing the total to 33,471.
Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin saw increases over the November, reaching 1.4%, 1.3%, and 1.8%, respectively.
While Hobart was the only city to record a decline over the month to 1.2%.
While in the Sydney CBD, the rate rose 0.8% to 4.6% in November, with the Melbourne CBD and Brisbane CBD increasing to 5.1% and 2.2% respectively.
“At this time of year, we usually see more properties become available for rent, spearheaded by inner city apartments,” added Bawa.
“This year was no exception as international student departures put more rentals on the market in the CBD areas.”
