Cited article in ” Domain Rental Report” reporter Jemimah Clegg
January 20, 2020
Regional Victoria is now the new rental hot spot. With priced out Melbornians flocking to the rea, and a small
number of rental homes for sale putting stress on the market experts say. A Domain Rental Report released on Thursday state
d that median house rentals in all but 4 local government areas either held their rental value or that they had risen.
“Regional areas are stuggling with the rental explosion and that has pushed property prices up.” Domain economist Trent Wiltshire stated.
In the largest regional ares such as geelong, rentals had risen 2.6 percent in 2019. Ballarat had risen 4.5 percent and regional
Bendigo rose a massive 6.3 perecent. Mr Whilshire noted that these areas where popluar with Melbanians looking for more affordable
housing prices, yet still close to greater Melbourne.
“The large regional towns are seeing a harder rental market, with visiable stronge growth in the areas recently.”
Surf Coast was the most exspensive area to rent with a retnal price of $520 a week, which was still $330 less then the
expensive rental of the Melbourne suburb of Bayside. Glenneg was amoungst one of Melbournes largest rental increased suburbs
In the south west of the state where prices jumped 23.2 per cent to $345, the Northern Grampians east of Horsham (17.4 per cent to $270) and Hindmarsh south of Mildura (16.9 per cent to $190).
Director of Hocking Stuart Daylesford, William Walton said that many people in the regional areas had the “buy before you try” method
when it came to real estate. They want to try it for 12 months first then decide if they would like to invest. He said people under 40s especial
those with childern where more likely in favor of the move because og the “ease of being able to work online from home, so its not only the retirees
from Melbourne wanting to move out of the large metropolis”. Leah Callnan the president of Real Estate Instiute of Victoria said that low vacancy rates
was another reason for rental increases, which is concerning for bush fire effected areas. “Most regional areas are still well below the 2% vacancy rate
which is very critical”, Ms Callnan quoted. Barinsdale and nearby areas for example, which is bush fire effected area has a vacancy rate less then 1%.
“We are affraid of rental increase and shortage of accomidation for the next six to tweleve months in those areas,” she said.
“So people with holiday homes or AirBNB it would be a great idea to put them out on the rental markets for those times”.
It was also noted by Mr Whilshire that the unit rental market was quiet strong in the regional areas however the market was smaller then the housing market.
“Maybe units have started to rise a bit more because house prices and house rents have flowed into units. It’s maybe a little bit too early to say what’s going on there but it’s certainly something to watch,” he said.
“If unit rents do jump, it will mean investors start to build more units to meet that demand.”
