Rental Market Vacancies Drop as Tenants Flock to the Coast

IF you have been on the hunt for a rental property you may have noticed the Sunshine Coast’s already tight rental market has made it notoriously hard to secure a home.

Potential tenants have needed to act quickly, with our offices leasing 75 properties in the 30 days of January 2016. This trend continued in to February with our group of five (5) offices reporting a 99% occupancy rate across all rental properties. The average days on market for any rental listing was 13 days, meaning rental properties were marketed and then leased to new tenants in under a fortnight.

Rental properties are attracting interest from multiple tenants with demand far outweighing supply, with our office currently conducting an average of 40 property inspections each week.

This competitive market is a combination of people looking to try suburbs before they buy into them, an influx of new employees from the medical precinct and new arrivals from the southern states and the collapsing northern Queensland mining communities.

The boost in University of the Sunshine Coast enrolments is also lifting demand for student accommodation.

The Real Estate Institute of Queensland rates a vacancy rate between zero and 2.5% as tight, 2.6% and 3.5% as healthy and anything over 3.6% as weak. Bearing these figures in mind, our office vacancy rate of 1% appears to be one of the tightest in the market place.

With surplus demand for rental properties, if you are a property investor we would love to discuss your property management options with you. Call us today on (07) 5443 2000.