‘Green shoots’: Qld’s rental vacancies improve but stock still half pre-pandemic levels

Queensland’s wafer-thin vacancy rate eased slightly last month, but new data shows just how tough it has become for renters since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.

This tiny, two-bedroom cottage at 7 Cochrane Street, Paddington, is available for rent for $600 a week.

Queensland’s wafer-thin vacancy rate eased slightly last month, but new data shows just how tough it has become for renters since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.

The latest PropTrack Rental Vacancy Rates report for April shows a small lift of just 0.1 per cent to 1.22 per cent in Brisbane, which is likely to be cold comfort for those tenants hoping to put a roof over their heads amid the supply shortage.

PropTrack Rental Vacancy Rates April 2023.

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The analysis shows Brisbane’s rental stock is a staggering 48 per cent below what was on the market back in March 2020, with the city among the nation’s top three metro regions with the tightest vacancy rates.

Adelaide is currently Australia’s tightest market at 0.97 per cent, followed by Perth at 0.98 per cent.

PropTrack senior economist and report author Paul Ryan said the data offered some “green shoots’ of hope that would hopefully continue to grow.

PropTrack economist Paul Ryan. Picture supplied.

“This is really the first bit of good news for renters in some time and is hopefully the start of an easing trend that continues,” Mr Ryan said.

“We have seen more rental stock coming onto the market again, and those listings are growing at pre-pandemic levels again with fewer investor sales and more investors coming into the market again.

“It (the vacancy rate) is still just 1.2 per cent in Brisbane which is exceptionally low.

This three-bedroom house at 16 Cranbourne Street, Chermside West, is advertised for rent for $765 a week.

“We also know that Brisbane rents have increased 14 per cent in a year, and with stock levels still low and demand high, we expect rents will continue to grow.

“It is incredibly tough for renters and I am not sure how many more increases at that rate they can take.”

Australia’s least constrained rental market is the ACT at 2.06 per cent, which is still below the 2.5 per cent ‘healthy’ benchmark used by the Real Estate Institute of Queensland.

This three-bedroom house at 4 Storkey Street, Windsor, is available for rent for $695 a week.

Outside of Brisbane, the vacancy rate in regional Queensland, which includes the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, sits at 1.54 per cent after a monthly increase in advertised stock of 0.05 per cent.

But the regions too have seen a dramatic drop in rental stock since March 2020, down a whopping 42 per cent.

SQM Research has the Brisbane CBD and South East Brisbane vacancy rate at 1.2 per cent, Inner Brisbane and East Brisbane at 1.1 per cent, Southern Brisbane at 1 per cent, Northern Brisbane and West Brisbane at 0.9 per cent and the Beenleigh Corridor at 0.8 per cent.

This four-bedroom house at 2 Hasemann Crescent, Upper Coomera, is advertised for rent for $800 a week.

Elsewhere, the vacancy rates for Gold Coast sits around 1.3 per cent and has been trending up since late last year.

The Sunshine Coast vacancy rate is now 1.6 per cent, Cairns (0.9 per cent), Townsville (1.8 per cent), Central Queensland (1.1 per cent) and Toowoomba (1 per cent).

Mr Ryan said Queensland was back to around “where we were in August last year” in terms of rental listings.

This three-bedroom house at 85 Mitchell Street, North Ward, is available for rent for $670 a week.

“Stock has improved and that’s part of it but broadly speaking, we still have about half of the available properties that were on the market at the start of the pandemic so there is lots more work to be done.”

‘Bulletproof Investing’ author and property commentator James Fitzgerald said rents had increased by 10 per cent in most regional areas in Queensland.

This four-bedroom house at 27 John Malcolm Street, Redlynch, Cairns, is available for rent for $650 a week.

“That’s all happened off the back of people moving to regional Queensland and properties changing hands from investors to owner occupiers, shrinking the overall rental pool,” Mr Fitzgerald said.

“The government is forecasting that we will bring in just under one million net overseas migrants in the next three years, and I think they will push a lot of them to regional Queensland to fill the job vacancies that came about when international borders shut during the pandemic.”