Good News for Renters

[NigelWaring]

Relief for Renters as Rates Fall

[Guest tumblealot]

Relief for Renters as Rates Fall

 

Hello,

 

Thank you for the link.

 

Hopefully the rates will keep on dropping!

[Guest mikka711]

Relief for Renters as Rates Fall

 

 

That looks promising - esp. on the Canberra front, thanks for the link.

[Guest The Pom Queen]

Hi

we also had an article in todays paper but they were saying because rentals are so tight in Victoria they do not expect them to drop anymore:no:

I just hope we don't end up like Darwin, where demand for rentals has pushed the prices through the roof.

 

Here is the Herald Sun Article for Victoria.

HOUSE rents have suffered their biggest fall in more than six years as prospective tenants baulk at the high prices asked by landlords.

The average rent for a Victorian house dropped by 3.5 per cent - $14 a week - to $379 between March and June this year.

Unit prices fell 1.9 per cent - $7 a week - from $353 in March to $346 in June.

"Renters have been hit hard over the past three years with rents across the country rising on average by 30 per cent," said Tim Lawless, from research firm RP Data. "People are now paying $95 more each week to the landlord than they were three years ago."

He said vacancy rates had plummeted as rising property prices pushed many potential buyers out of the market.

"As more households became financially blocked from buying a home, the only other option was to rent," Mr Lawless said.

"With this, the demand for rental accommodation grew and the supply of new housing and investor numbers remained consistently low. The net result of this high demand and lack of new supply is that there has been a large amount of upwards price pressure on weekly rents."

Mr Lawless said improving affordability levels brought about by lower interest rates and modest house price falls had made buying a more viable option. This had cut the number of prospective tenants vying for rental properties.

Despite the drop Mr Lawless said renters shouldn't get their hopes up that rents would come down further.

"Vacancy rates are still tight," he said. "With such low vacancy rates and not a great deal of new supply entering the market, it is logical to expect weekly rents to avoid any significant declines for the foreseeable future."

Mr Lawless said unit rents had held up better than house rents because they were usually cheaper and often in better locations.

Nationally, the average weekly house rent has dropped 3.5 per cent ($15) to $424 in the June quarter, and unit rents fell just 0.6 per cent ($2.40) to $410.

Darwin - with the most expensive average rents in the country - was the only capital where rents rose. Tenants in Darwin pay about $100 a week more to rent a house than renters in Sydney

[Guest ragdoll annie]

Yippee!...have to say that there are more houses available to rent where we are now than there were a couple of years ago when we first arrived here...better prices and better houses than the ones we had in Sydney.