Immigration is still rattling along lickety-split and keeping the rental market as buoyant and vibrant as at any time in its history. Rents are high and lessees are queuing with CVs in hand to get housed. Our property management team has accrued data showing that larger executive and family homes are taking longer to lease, while apartments and smaller houses are leasing in a trice. This seems to be principally due to the immigrant section of the demand for housing being unable to immediately afford the larger, more expensive, domiciles.

Given the historically low vacancy rates and scarcity of rental properties the market is currently suffering, rents remain strong, and are getting stronger. Australians are now spending a higher proportion of their income on rent than they have for decades, another factor leading to the recent trend toward smaller, more modest, properties.

At Abercrombys we don’t foresee the supply shortage in the rental market lessening in the near future. It would take an unprecedented, almost magical, building boom, or a cessation of immigration, and neither of these phenomena is in the offing. (Phenomena rarely are in the offing, as a rule.) That may not be what potential lessees want to hear – but it’s an ideal time for any prospective lessor to give one of Abercromby’s experienced Property Management staff a ring.