Rents across Australia have risen at their fastest rate in more than a decade, but things are likely to get worse, with more hikes and shrinking vacancy rates on the way.
Despite soaring rents in the past 18 months, hurting many tenants already taking big hits from a rising cost of living, apartment rents are predicted to continue to soar over the next five years.
New research by commercial real estate firm CBRE says rents in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and Parramatta, Melbourne’s north, Perth city and almost all suburbs of Brisbane could rise by up to 30 per cent by 2028. The rises are underpinned by forecast declines in capital city vacancy rates from a current average of 1.8 per cent to just 0.8 per cent – one-third of the previous decade average of 2.5 per cent.
In Sydney, less than 40 per cent of renters were housed in apartments in 2006 but, by 2021, it had jumped to more than 50 per cent.