Sydney Rental Market

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EXPERT INSIGHT

One of the most prominent trends in Australian housing markets over the past 12 months has been the deterioration of rents in inner city apartment markets across Sydney and Melbourne. At the greater capital city level, rent values have fallen -4.9% across Sydney units since March last year, while Melbourne unit rents have fallen -8.2%.

Much of the drag on unit rents in Sydney and Melbourne have come from inner city regions. CoreLogic estimates suggest the SA4 ‘City and Inner South’ market of Sydney accounts for 18.6% of investment units across the Greater Sydney area. The ‘Melbourne – Inner’ region comprises an estimated 45.9% of investment unit stock in the greater capital city.

In the 12 months to March, which virtually captures 12 months since COVID restrictions were implemented nationally, the City and Inner South of Sydney has seen a -14.5% decline in median asking rents from $620 per week, to $530. Median asking rents across the Melbourne – Inner region sank -18.9% over the year, from $475 per week to $385. For both cities, these inner city SA4 markets have seen the lowest rate of change in rents over the year.

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Previous CoreLogic research has highlighted that these markets were disproportionately impacted by the closure of international borders, where most overseas arrivals to Australia are initially renters. In the year of measurement before COVID-19, ABS data suggests the City and Inner South and Melbourne – Inner markets alone accounted for 11.2% of net overseas arrivals to Australia. Hence, the halting of overseas migration has had a disproportionate impact on rental markets in these regions.

While these markets are far from recovery, there are signs that conditions may be stabilising, particularly across Sydney. Median asking rents across units in the City and Inner South of Sydney were -14.5% lower over the year to March, but they have risen 6.0% from a recent low of $500 per week in December. Melbourne – Inner median asking rents did slip another -3.8% through the March quarter, but listings stock appears to have been moderating since early February.

Total unit rental stock on the market across inner Sydney and Melbourne is falling. In the 28 days ending April 11th, the amount of listed rentals declined -9.4% across inner Melbourne, and -15.5% across inner Sydney.

For Melbourne however, available unit rentals remain 121.1% higher compared with the 28 day period to March 15 2020, when Australia recorded its 100th case of COVID-19. Sydney unit rental listings have now fallen below pre-COVID levels by -4.5%, highlighting a much faster recovery than across Melbourne.

The elevated rent listings volume through the second half of 2020 across inner Melbourne also shows how an extended lockdown and social distancing restrictions across the city had contributed to a deterioration in rents.

There are several factors which might explain the curious stabilisation of inner city unit markets;

<ul>
<li>Economic activity in CBDs is recovering, but gradually. Easing of COVID-19 restrictions has seen a recovery trend across recreation and hospitality businesses, reflected in very strong gains in sentiment through the month of March. Higher employment levels in hospitality, tourism and the arts are particularly important for demand in inner city Sydney and Melbourne rental markets, because residents in these markets had a relatively high exposure to these industries pre-COVID.</li>
	<li>Pedestrian foot traffic data from the City of Melbourne suggests visitation to the CBD has improved on 2020, but is still only at 50% of pre-COVID levels.</li>
	<li>It is worth noting that this progress of economic activity in the CBDs may be hampered by the end of JobKeeper. This is particularly the case for Melbourne, where around 300,000 people are recipients of the wage subsidy (though a smaller portion of these JobKeeper recipients would currently have no working hours).</li>
	<li>Interstate travel may be tightening rental market conditions. The initial onset of COVID-19 had anecdotally seen short term rentals, namely Airbnb accommodation, put onto the long term rental market. While short term accommodation volumes may still be affected by a lack of international tourism, there is likely higher demand amid eased restrictions, open domestic borders and domestic tourism. Indeed, AirDNA data showed Melbourne short term accommodation volumes rise over the first quarter of Mach 2021.</li>
	<li>Investors may be selling up. The coming months may see some instances of investors looking to sell inner city apartments amid weak rental conditions. This could see properties, at least temporarily, taken off the rental market.</li>
</ul>
While conditions across inner city apartments seem to stabilising, it is clear the Melbourne apartment market has a long way to go before rents see a more consistent recovery trend. This may be further hampered by the construction pipeline, where recently released ABS building activity data showed there were still 43,302 apartments under construction across Victoria through the December quarter. The return of international visitation to Australia has previously kept the Melbourne rental market buoyant amid high levels of new supply. A full recovery in rental incomes across Melbourne units is unlikely under international arrivals are closer to pre-COVID levels.
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One of the most prominent trends in Australian housing markets over the past 12 months has been the deterioration of rents in inner city apartment markets across Sydney and Melbourne

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CoreLogic data shows signs of stabilising in inner city rental markets: Eliza Owen

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Sydney's inner city unit market recorded the second largest falls this year down -5.7 per cent over 2020, according to CoreLogic’s Rental Review for the December 2020 quarter.

In terms of rental dollar value, Sydney has long been the most expensive market in which to rent, however 2020 saw Canberra surpass Sydney as the most expensive market to rent a house at $624 p/w, $10 p/w more expensive than the typical house in Sydney.

Sydney units however maintained their position as the nation’s most expensive capital city in which to rent a unit despite the $36 reduction recorded in the year to December.

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Median unit rent's in Sydney are currently $504, just $8 ahead of Canberra. 

Unit rental prices across the city are down -0.6 per cent for the month, -2.7 per cent for the quarter and -5.7 per cent for the year. However for the decade, the rental market is up 11.8% for units.

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The area's hit hardest in Sydney were the City &amp; Inner South down -12.8 per cent and North Sydney &amp; Hornsby down -7.1 per cent. Following close behind those loss leaders were Ryde and the Inner West, -6.9 per cent as well as Parramatta and the Inner South, -5.3 per cent.

Some regions did see improvement across the wider NSW region including Sutherland and the Central Coast which saw the strongest growth at 5.5 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.

Rental conditions in regional markets have been outperforming capital cities with unit markets recording weak conditions across the largest capital cities.

December 2020 saw Australia’s dwelling market record the largest monthly increase in rental rates since 2010, up 0.6 per cent over the month. The 10 year record can be attributed to growth across the house market which saw a 0.9 per cent rise in rental rates over the month, more than offsetting a -0.1 per cent fall in unit rents.

Across the broad regions, regional markets were the standout performer with both house and unit rents up 1.1 per cent in December, taking house rents 2.9 per cent higher over the final quarter of 2020 and unit rents 2.6 per cent higher.

Unit rental rates across the capital cities fell -0.3 per cent over the month to be down -1.6 per cent over the December quarter. Despite the diverse performance over the year, national rents rose by 1.9 per cent annually in 2020, which was the largest annual increase across the dwelling market since mid-2018. 
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Sydney has long been the most expensive market in which to rent, however 2020 saw Canberra surpass Sydney as the most expensive market to rent a house, with unit prices barely holding their lead

Sydney Rental Market

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