Renters have great conditions to get a bargain in the Melbourne market as it battles with COVID.
Units are offering particular value for renters, largely being driven by the falling demand for inner-city apartments since the pandemic hit.
Eliza Owen from CoreLogic said the supply of houses and units that were on the rental market was sitting at around 35,000, which is more than 13 per cent above the five year average and well above demand.
“When you look at the softest annual performance in rent, those areas are largely comprised of Melbourne and Sydney, and they’re largely comprised of pockets in those cities that have a lot of units,” Ms Owen told the Herald Sun.
Ms Owen said that falling overseas migration and people leaving Melbourne were contributing to the soft market.
“Migration figures over the past year show there has been an uplift in movement from Melbourne to Queensland,” she said.
“So that may have helped ease rental pressures across Melbourne and put upward pressure on Brisbane rents.”
“The other factors come back to income. So where you’ve had less lockdowns across Brisbane, Adelaide and smaller capital cities, that means that incomes have been less disrupted, which has supported rental growth.”
REA Group’s Cameron Kusher said renters were looking less at the inner city and more at the outer and middle ring suburbs.
“There’s still not a lot of demand for inner-city apartments, and historically areas like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have been the biggest rental markets for these properties in most capital cities,” Mr Kusher told the Herald Sun.
“But what we’re finding the outer capital city markets are very tight; properties are renting very quickly and prices are rising, and it’s a similar story in a lot of the regional areas as well.”
