The latest apartment rental data from CoreLogic shows that rents soared at double-digit rates across Australia’s major capital cities in the year to November:
Hyper-inflation hits apartment rents.
This unit rent hyper-inflation is off a record low vacancy rate of only 0.97% across the combined capital cities in October, according to CoreLogic:
Unit rental market tightest on record.
The situation is only likely to worsen from here, given the federal budget has forecast nearly one million net overseas migrant arrivals over the next four years, the majority of whom will land in Australia’s major cities (particularly Sydney and Melbourne):
Federal Budget: Nearly one million net migrants to arrive by 2025-26.
Already there is good reason to believe that the 2022-23 forecast of 235,000 net overseas migration (NOM) will be obliterated, given a record 96,000 net migrants arrived in the March quarter (latest available data) and the fact that annual net visa arrivals have already bounced back to pre-pandemic levels:
Net visa arrivals surging.
This is concerning given actual high-rise apartment approvals are tracking way below their peak. High-rise apartment approvals (i.e. 4 storeys or more) are down 51% from their peak, whereas low-rise apartment approvals are down 84% from peak:
Apartment approvals have crashed.
The decline in high-rise apartment approvals has been especially severe across NSW (-67%), Victoria (-47%) and QLD (-53%) where apartment rents are soaring the most:
High-rise approvals down heavily across NSW, VIC and QLD.
I’ve said it repeatedly and I will say it again: where will the hundreds of thousands of migrants expected to arrive in Australia each year live when there is already a critical shortage of rental accommodation for the existing population? In cars? In tents? On the streets?
The Albanese Government’s ‘Big Australia’ immigration policy is an unmitigated inequality disaster that will inevitably see rents soar even further and thousands of Australians pushed into homelessness.
