Record low rental vacancies across regional and coastal Queensland
The latest Real Estate Institute of Queensland vacancy data for the December 2020 quarter shows Brisbane’s inner city rental market is seeing a comeback.
Having rocketed to almost 5% in the June Quarter, rental vacancies in the CBD have eased to 3.3%.
“The market has yet to fully rebound,” Antonia Mercorella, CEO of the REIQ advised.
Rental vacancies around the city’s middle ring remain tight, including Hawthorne (1.4%), New Farm (1.9%), Paddington (2.1%) and St Lucia (1.7%).
Further out into Brisbane’s outer ring and vacancies are even tighter, including Camp Hill (1.3%), Cannon Hill (1.4%), Holland Park (1.2%) and Moorooka (1.3%).
“In the last six months we’ve witnessed some record lows across capital city suburbs; figures we’ve certainly not seen for well over a decade,” Ms. Mercorella noted.
“It’s a similar scenario as you travel around the wider regions of Brisbane including Ipswich, Logan, Morton Bay and Redlands which all have uncomfortably low stock levels around 1%.”
Across the State’s regional areas, Cairns (1.2%), Cassowary Coast (1.1%), Isaac (1.2%), Mareeba (1.5%) and the Whitsundays (1.4%) saw vacancies rise above 1%.
However, for the remaining regional Queensland, rental vacancies have plunged further to record an all-time median low of 0.575% including Bundaberg (0.4%), Fraser Coast (0.6%), Hervey Bay (0.9%), Mackay (0.7%), Toowoomba (0.7%) and Townsville (0.7%).
Rockhampton recorded the lowest rental vacancies for the December 2020 quarter at 0.2%.
“During the pandemic, the Palaszczuk Government introduced a range of measures keeping tenants in place for longer which is part of the reason we have incredibly low rental availability across Queensland,” says Ms. Mercorella.
“We have also seen a significant amount of interstate migration, with renters also moving to Queensland, so all of these factors have contributed to our current tight vacancy rates.”
The popular destination for interstate migration, the Sunshine Coast hasn’t shifted in months, firmly gripped at 0.3%.
Many areas such as Buddina (0.3%), Caloundra (0.3%), Maroochydore (0.5%), Noosa (0.4%) and Sunrise Beach (0.5%) have continued to tighten marginally over the last three months.
The Gold Coast isn’t far behind, with Surfers Paradise, which recorded more than 2,100 vacant rentals at the peak of the pandemic nine months ago, currently at 0.7% stock availability.
“In fact, its rental market has rebounded beyond pre-COVID levels to reach a record low never before recorded,” she said.
The record low vacancies reported across the entire Gold Coast include Arundel (0.6%), Labrador (0.7%), Oxenford (0.1%), Runaway Bay (0.5%) and Southport (0.7%) and in the south, Broadbeach (0.8%), Currumbin (0.3%), Miami (0.2%), Palm Beach (0.3%) and Varsity Lakes (0.6%).