Property investors make a comeback in 2023

Property investors returned to the market in a big way in 2023 as rising property prices and tightening rental vacancy rates lured investors back. Despite a 1.3% decline in the value of new investor loans during December, over the year investor lending surged 20.4% to sit at the highest level since August 2021. By comparison, owner occupier lending fell 5.6% during the month, sitting 7.4% higher compared to a year earlier, according to the latest lending data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. ABS head of finance statistics Mish Tan said investors now accounted for more than one third of…
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Share house demand soars through rental crisis and high prices

Demand for share houses has boomed as home seekers continue to struggle with Sydney’s ongoing housing challenges. New data released Wednesday by flatmates.com.au, a website where members list and search for vacant rooms, revealed they had over 1 million page visits in January alone. There was a huge jump in member sign ups in January, with 67,700 new members joining the platform in the past month, which was a 22 per cent increase month on month. Amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and increasingly tight rental market, demand for share house living has skyrocketed. Share housing is on the rise as…
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Adelaide and regional SA’s vacancy rates are easing but rental markets remain tight

Jessica Brown Updated Feb 8, 2024, 10:09am First published 8 Feb 2024, 9:30am News Corp Australia Network Adelaide and regional SA’s vacancy rates eased in January, new data reveals, but both rental markets are still tight. Picture: supplied. Adelaide’s rental market remains one of the tightest in the country despite its vacancy rate once again easing slightly over the past month. New PropTrack data shows the city’s vacancy rate, which measures the percentage of rental properties that are empty and available for lease, is now 0.78 per cent after easing 0.09 percentage points in January. Adelaide now has the second…
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Victoria rent crisis: At least 15 per cent of rental properties fail legal standards

Nine out of the 100 properties had visible mold in the study, while 39 agents were unable to provide a history of if the rental ever had mold. Victorian families searching for affordable homes to rent are facing dud prospects that in many cases are failing to meet legal standards for rentals. New research by Tenants Victoria and the Consumer Policy Research Center shows at least 15 per cent of rentals assessed breached the Residential Tenancies Act years after it was updated in 2021. RELATED: Singles pushed out of rent market, pending social housing waitlist Victoria at the heart of…
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Sydney’s staggering drop in available rental properties

Sydney tenants on the hunt for a new rental have 62 per cent fewer properties to choose from than they did at the start of the Covid pandemic. “It’s an incredibly staggering drop,” PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said. “The fact that we have seen such a large drop in such a short number of years really points to how much has changed in the market,” she said. PropTrack data released Wednesday revealed Sydney recorded the sharpest drop in available rentals across the nations major cities last month. The vacancy rate is now 1.2 per cent. Long lines of renters have…
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Hot rental market expected to heat further

News Corp Australia Network This property at 45 Hale St, Townsville City, is for rent for $520 per week in a tight rental market. Picture: realestate.com.au The Townsville rental market remains under pressure in 2023 with rental properties becoming scarcer as tenants cough up more to lock down a home. The latest PropTrack Market Insight report showed rents in the Townsville region increased 7 per cent last year, to $460 per week, and were up 4.5 per cent in the December quarter. The median rent for a house was sitting at $490 per week, up 4.3 per cent for the…
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Kyle Sandilands ‘revolutionary’ money move

KIIS FM radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson. Kyle Sandilands is striking a blow for struggling renters through a ‘revolutionary’ new business venture. The radio king has a 95 per cent stake in Zero Bonds, which bills itself as ‘The Ultimate Rental Bond Solution’. RELATED: Kyle Sandilands’ new $14m trophy home ZeroBonds offers renters the opportunity to forgo paying bonds. Zero Bonds offers tenants the opportunity to forgo the traditional four-week rental bond in favor of instead paying an application fee and percentage of their total bond value. Sandilands was motivated to start the business to help out…
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Why are rents so high and will they keep going up?

Tenants are feeling the pinch regardless of whether they move or stay put, according to new data showing rent increases on property sites Zoopla and Rightmove, while the Office for National Statistics has also recorded steep increases to mid-tenancy rents. The median monthly rent in England between October 2022 and September 2023 was £825 – higher than at any other point on record, according to ONS. Rents in London have risen at a particularly high rate in the last year – tenants have seen surges of 6.9% in the year up to January – the highest annual rate since ONS…
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