A number of Australian capital cities have registered their highest rental rates in recent history. According to a report from theguardian.com, the flood of investor money had been the major factor to the meteoric rise of rentals in the country.
One such example is the average rent price for an apartment in Sydney has risen to AU$500 per week in the past year. Other cities that have shown the same rate of increase include Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne, as indicated in the most recent Domain Group Rental Report.
The report indicated that the median weekly rent for Sydney home is at AU$530, which is an increase of nearly two percent in the past quarter, where rentals held steady at AU$500.
According to Domain Senior Economist Dr. Andrew Wilson, "We would have expected some rental relief for tenants by now. The continued increase in rental prices is indicative of the low numbers of the first home buyers and the pressure on the rental market as a result." He added a number of factors, such as the high volume of investments as well as the low volume of first home buyers had contributed to the increases in the rental rates.
In contrast, according to a report from abc.net.au, a number of cities have experienced the continued decline of rental prices in their areas. Chief among these cities is Perth, where the rates have decreased by 4.4 percent in the last quarter.
The numbers were indicated in the same report from Domain Group. The median rent for Perth had dropped to AU$430 in the quarter ending June 2015. In the first three months of 2015, rental rates were at AU$450 a week. Even unit rental prices for the city have fallen, from AU$385 for the quarter ending March 2015 to $375 for the quarter ending June 2015.
For this, Dr. Wilson added, "There's really no sign of that shake out in rents that we've seen in Perth over the last year easing. It's good news for tenants but not so good news for landlords. It's not just a reduction in demand, but that excess in supply which is also putting downward pressure on rents."
