More evidence has emerged underlining Perth’s severe shortage of rental accommodation, with new figures released today showing just 973 vacancies at the end of February.
SQM Research tipped rents to jump by almost five per cent this year, with Perth recording a vacancy rate of just 0.6 per cent in February.
A year ago, there were 1,567 properties available to rent in the Perth metropolitan area, for a vacancy rate of 1 per cent.
Nationally, vacancies declined by 0.1 per cent in February, falling to 1.7 per cent and a total of 47,080, SQM said.
“As has been previously reported, vacancies remain tight across most capital cities,” SQM managing director Louis Christopher said.
“We particularly note conditions in Perth have now swung heavily in favour towards landlords and we are now expecting rents to rise in Perth by at least 5 per cent for this year.”
The figures paint a starker picture of Perth’s rental crisis than numbers released by the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia last week, which put Perth’s vacancy rate at 1.6 per cent in February, a four-year low.
REIWA’s long-term equilibrium vacancy rate is around 3 per cent.
REIWA statistics indicated there were 2,200 homes available to rent at the end of February, down from 2,900 at the beginning of the year.
