Tweed rental demand rises while vacancy rates lower

Rental demand continues to increase across the Tweed Shire as the latest data shows the region has the lowest vacancy rate in NSW.

The rental demand data comes from a realestate.com.au report that looked at the number of visits per listed rental property over a six month period (between September 1 2016 to February 28 2017).

The number of views per rental property was then compared to the same period in the previous year.

Across the Tweed Shire all areas saw an increase in the number of visits per property apart from Pottsville which saw a 28 per cent decrease.

The highest demand was in Tweed Heads West (28 per cent increase) and Murwillumbah (25 per cent) which is likely due to the fact these suburbs are the most affordable in the Tweed. The current median rent in Tweed Heads West is $330 per week and Murwillumbah $370 per week.

The northern end of the Tweed Coast also saw high demand for rental properties with Kingscliff seeing a 21 per cent increase in viewings and Casuarina 23 per cent. This was despite the median rent rising to $450 per week in Kingscliff and $520 per week in Casuarina.

According to the latest CoreLogic Regional Market Report the median rent for houses across Richmond-Tweed increased by 4.7 per cent to $450 per week whilst units increased 5.4 per cent to $390.

This comes as the latest vacancy rate figures released by the Real Estate Institute of NSW (REINSW) approach 1 per cent for the region. For the Northern Rivers Region in the month of February the vacancy rate reduced from 1.6 per cent to just 1.1 per cent, the lowest in the state.

According to the REINSW, vacancy rates were affected by the summer holidays and festive season.

“Activity was limited prior to Australia Day with the desire to search for new rental accommodation low on the agenda during this busy time,” REINSW President John Cunningham said.

“We started to see a recovery in the market as the month progressed.”

This comes as data released by CoreLogic shows the number of rental properties in the country are rising as investor demand increases.

The report shows that the number of rental advertisements over the past year has increased by 8.7 per cent for houses and 9.3 per cent for units.

The January 2017 housing finance data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that over the month, investors committed a total of $13.8 billion in finance for investment properties. This figure is a 4.2 per cent rise over the month and a 27.5 per cent increase from the previous year.

According to the RBA there is $572.2 billion in investor credit outstanding to Australian lenders. This figure accounts for 34.9 per cent of all housing credit outstanding ($1.637 trillion) and 21.5 per cent of total outstanding credit.