Rent Crisis Remains Despite Investor Rise

A return of investors is unlikely to help ease Australia’s rental crisis in the short term. The value of investor lending hit a record high for the first two months of 2022, according to the Australian Bureau Statistics, but it is likely not enough to offset the number of investors who sold properties during the pandemic.

Monthly spending by investors in January was $10.9 billion, the highest since April 2015. It dropped slightly in February to $10.75 billion.

PropTrack director of economic research Cameron Kusher says the investor market has rebounded because of rapidly rising rents, improved yields and property price growth potential.

“The data seems to suggest that a lot of those investors who sold out of the market previously sold to owner-occupiers rather than investors,” Kusher says.

“So, we’ve had this spinning out of the overall supply of rental stock.”
Vacancy rate data from both Domain and SQM Research puts the national vacancy rate at just 1% in March.