Sydney night view
Source: Patrick McLachlan from Pexels
  • Sydney's Inner Ring continues to attract tenants
  • Tenants will be faced with tough decisions once government assistance ends
  • Overall vacancies in Sydney sit at 3.3% in December, down 0.1% from November

REINSW Vacancy Rate Survey Results for December 2020 show Sydney’s Inner Ring continues to attract tenants with drops in vacancy rates.

The survey covered 91,012 residential rental properties, and is based on the proportion of unlet residential dwellings to the total rent roll of REINSW member agents on the 15th of each month.

REINSW CEO, Tim McKibbin says that vacancy rates have continued to stabilise as the market reaches the end of a chaotic year.

“Though, with this latest COVID-19 wave now hanging over NSW, it will be interesting to see how the market fares during the first quarter of the year.”

The vacancy rates in Sydney’s Inner Ring rental market decreased from 4.6% to 4.4%, indicating a return to confidence. However, there was a jump in vacancies in the Middle Ring, from 4.4% to 4.7%, and no change in the Outer Ring.

Vacancy rates decreased in Central Coast, Mid-North Coast, and Murrumbidgee, falling 0.3%, 0.1%, and 0.7% respectively.

Increasing vacancy rates was a trend in many regional areas however, with Wollongong’s vacancy rates increasing from 1.8% to 2.5%, affecting Illawarra’s result by an increase of 0.2% to 1.5%.

Overall vacancies in Sydney dropped in December to 3.3% – down 0.1% from November.

“The job market continued to strengthen during December,” said McKibbin, “but as we begin 2021 many tenants may still be faced with tough financial decisions to make due to the drop in Government assistance payments.”

“With what we hope to be a short-lived new COVID wave, it will be a little more time before we see the market continue with the stability it was starting to find in the latter part of 2020.”



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