Asking rents soar to record highs in coastal areas

Rents have soared to record levels in many coastal areas in response to shrinking supply and rising demand from tenants moving out of the big cities and into regional and warmer locations.

Asking rents for houses in the Gold Coast have surged 32 percent in the past 12 months to a record high, while units rose 16 per cent.

Sunshine Coast houses also fetched record high rents, which rose 18.5 per cent and 15.7 per cent for units.

In Port Macquarie, in NSW’s north coast, house rents jumped 19 per cent and units 22 per cent. In Coffs Harbour, house rents climbed 34 per cent and units by 14 per cent.

“I’ve just never seen these large rises before,” said Louis Christopher, SQM Research managing director.

“We thought the migration away from the CBDs would be reversed, but it looks like people continue to seek out bigger spaces in areas offering desirable lifestyles. We now know there won’t be a complete reversal of the trend away from the cities.”

High tenant demand has pushed vacancy rates to record lows in the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Port Macquarie, where it had fallen to 0.8 per cent, 0.9 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively.

The rental markets in the inner cities surrounding CBDs have also tightened as more renters move out from their shared rentals to live on their own, but the number of empty apartments in the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs have jumped higher again because of increasing supply after falling in the previous month.

Sydney’s vacancy rates dropped to 3.1 per cent in April, down from 4 per cent in March while Melbourne fell to 4 per cent from 4.4 per cent.

Vacancy rates in Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Darwin and Hobart remained below 1 per cent while Brisbane’s fell to 1.4 per cent.

Nationwide, the amount of empty rentals has fallen 8.3 per cent, squeezing vacancy rates to 1.9 per cent in April from 2.1 per cent in the previous month.

“The fall in vacancy rates is now encompassing the inner-suburban regions, which I believe is due to the falling number of occupants per dwelling, which is putting pressure on vacancies,” Mr Christopher said.

“The fall in national vacancies is surprising given there has been record first home buyer activity and strong dwelling completions relative to the population.”

The number of empty CBD apartments jumped 17 per cent in Sydney and rose 1 per cent in Melbourne, pushing vacancy rates up to 7.3 per cent and 8.3 per cent respectively.

“This is telling us that there is still a lack of interest in terms of moving back into the CBD,” Mr Christopher said.

“It looks like the vacancy rates are not going back to pre-COVID levels of around 4 per cent in the foreseeable future due to high levels of stock.