Over August, national asking rents grew for both units and homes nationwide. This rise has been driven primarily by growth in regional rents. SQM Research suggests that this could be due to the lockdowns, which may have encouraged more people to move to regional areas in a bid to escape the latest restrictions.
Vacancy rates
Over the month of July, the residential vacancy rate sat at 1.7% Australia-wide with 61,313 residential properties recorded as vacant across the nation. This is a jump up from 60,468 recorded in June.
Louis Christopher, Managing Director of SQM Research said, “Current tight rental vacancy rates are driving up rents across Australia. It is somewhat perplexing to see both regional Australia and the Capital cities record surges. Given the ongoing international border closures and still relatively high completions.”
Rental values
Over the month to 4th September, national asking rents rose by 0.9% for houses and 0.8% for units. Units grew to $401 per week, while houses rose to $532 per week. Compared to the previous year, house rents grew by 15.7% while units rose by 8.1% nationally.
Property prices
Over August, asking prices in Sydney dropped by 0.4% for houses compared to the previous month. However, prices in Sydney rose by 4.2% for units. Meanwhile, house prices grew by 2.8% in Adelaide, 0.2% in Melbourne, 2.3% in Brisbane and 2.1% in Darwin. Property listings across Australia dropped by 9.6% during August. In comparison to the same time last year, listings have decreased by 26.3%. The number of new listings on the market (less than 30 days) decreased by 7.8% over August compared to July.
Louis Christopher, Managing Director of SQM Research said, “Listing counts over August were predominantly impacted by lockdowns, particularly for Sydney whereby there was a 19.7% decline in new listings.”
Australian housing values continued to record a broad-based rise despite the disruption from lockdowns. According to CoreLogic’s national home value index, dwelling values rose 1.5% in August; a rate of growth that is still well above average, but the lowest monthly rise since January.
The August update takes Australian housing values 15.8% higher over the first eight months of the year and 18.4% above levels a year ago. In dollar terms, the annual increase in national dwelling values equates to approximately $103,400, or $1,990 per week. In comparison, Australian wages are rising at the average annual rate of 1.7%.
Source:
https://www.propertyme.com.au/blog/industry-news/august-property-market-update-2021
https://www.corelogic.com.au/news/august-2021-home-value-index
