Property investors enjoying rising rents and yields
Australia is currently a landlord’s market, with rental conditions favouring investors over tenants in many parts of the country.
That’s explained by the very low vacancy rate (i.e. the share of vacant properties), which fell from 1.5% to 1.2% between May 2022 and May 2023, according to CoreLogic.
Investors in much of Australia are enjoying strong demand for their properties; conversely, tenants are being forced to compete hard. As a result, rents are continuing to rise.
Here are five key takeaways from CoreLogic’s May rental data:
- Rental growth has slowed
Rents are growing strongly, but the pace has slowed. The nation's median rent increased by 0.8% in May, compared to 0.9% in April and 1.0% in March. As a result, rents rose by 'only' 9.9% over the year to May – a significant increase, but the first time in 10 months it had been less than 10%.
- Most markets are growing
Over the year to May, 93.3% of house and unit markets recorded a rental increase, while 6.7% recorded a decline. Most of those falling markets were in Canberra and regional Australia.
- Units are growing faster than houses
Unit rents recorded much stronger annual growth (14.8%) than house rents (8.1%). That reduced the gap between the median weekly unit rent ($558) and house rent ($594) to only $36.
- Metro locations are growing faster than regional
Capital city rents recorded much stronger annual growth (11.7%) than regional rents (5.4%).
- Yields are rising
Yields rose from 3.28% to 3.88% over the year to May. Units recorded higher yields than houses (4.64% v 3.64%) and stronger annual growth (0.82 v 0.52 percentage points).
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