Preliminary data out today from the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia show that the vacancy rate for rental accommodation in the metropolitan area dropped to 2.3 per cent in the three months to February.
For the volatile month-only reading for February, REIWA recorded a rate of just 1.6 per cent. This is down from 2.8 per cent at the end of last year.
The last time a reading of 1.6 per cent was recorded was four years ago, for the December quarter of 2007.
The tightening in the market has seen the median rent for units, apartments, villas and townhouses increase by $10 to a median of $390 per week.
REIWA President David Airey said that while rents for multi-residential dwellings had gone up, rents for houses remained steady at $420 per week.
REIWA President David Airey said that while rents for multi-residential dwellings had gone up, rents for houses remained steady at $420 per week.
“The fall in the vacancy rate is not surprising as we have seen the volume of property listed for rent fall 24 per cent since the start of the year, from 2,900 homes to 2,200 at the end of February. It’s also the case that there is strong seasonal demand for rental property in the March quarter,” Mr Airey said.
REIWA’s preliminary figures show the vacancy rate along Perth's north coastal market from Scarborough upwards at just 1.2 per cent for February and 1.5 per cent for the three months to February. In the western suburbs the rate is steady at 2.3 per cent.
“The vacancy rate has tightened in Perth's outer southwest corridor where the monthly vacancy rate for Kwinana-Rockingham has fallen one percentage point from 2.5 per cent in January to 1.5 per cent in February, which means that in the three months to February the vacancy rate was 2.2 per cent,” Mr Airey said.
Mr Airey said the rental pressure was coming from those who were opting to rent rather than buy and from the growing demand for accommodation from new migrants flowing into WA which saw a solid upturn in 2011.
“The long term equilibrium vacancy rate in Perth is 3 per cent and the lowest point we have recorded was just 0.8 per cent in the March quarter of 2007,” Mr Airey said.
