Suzana Wade of Locate Property is a local Brisbane property management expert who is on the ground in Brisbane, speaking to tenants every day. Her insight is invaluable when actually trying to ascertain investor sentiment and tenant feedback for Brisbane Properties, and right now is a bad time to be a tenant.
Property rents are increasing, and vacancy rates are at an all-time low. However, this should be an excellent time to be a property investor. However, why hasn’t this translated to more investors buying right now?
Tenant demand is robust, rental prices are rising, properties are in little danger of sitting empty, rental returns are strong, and it’s starting to shift to be a buyer’s market in many locations thanks to recent declines in purchasing prices.
However, investors have been noticeably absent from the festivities. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data, the value of investor lending for homes in February was down 32.6% year over year. Overall, house lending was down 30.9%.
It’s crucial to emphasise that a lack of investors isn’t the only reason for our housing crisis; governments and a lack of development are also to blame (the number of dwelling approvals in February 2023 was down 31.1% from the previous year).
However, investor participation helps to alleviate the crisis.
The main obstacle, according to PropTrack economist Angus Moore, has been interest rates, which have crushed investors due to limited borrowing capacity and higher mortgage rates.
repayments just like everyone else. The Palaszczuk government’s new tenant legislation is a close second in terms of the reasons keeping investors out of the Brisbane property market.
Although prices have retracted by on average 5–10% over the last 18 or so months, investing in Brisbane Properties is unquestionably more expensive thanks to interest rates and hidden investment costs. “During the pandemic, we actually noticed more investors selling than buying,” Suzana said.
“Many people saw their overall wealth decline as a result of falling home prices.” “Also, given the low number of property listings and limited new homes to buy, there hasn’t been a large selection of investment property options for investors to purchase with an attractive price discount incentive.”
Investors for Brisbane properties have the opportunity to profit.
Experts believe the moment is now, with capital city vacancy rates still falling and rental prices rising as housing supply is limited and population growth is high.
According to PropTrack statistics, a vacancy rate of 3% is considered desirable as a market equilibrium between tenants and owners; however, capital cities recorded a rate of only 1.43% in March 2023, down 55% from March 2020 and 0.66% from March 2022.
Sydney and Melbourne experienced the most significant quarterly declines, while Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, the ACT, and the regions experienced modest rises.
According to the ABS, 303,700 people are predicted to move to our shores in the year ending June 30, 2022; a larger proportion of them than the average population is likely to seek rental accommodation.
Meanwhile, advertised rental prices on realestate.com.au rose 2% nationally in the first quarter of 2023 to a median of $500 per week, representing an 11.1% increase over the previous year and the fastest rate of rent growth since well before the pandemic.
“Given how tight rental markets are and how competitive they are, we’re seeing rents grow extremely quickly across the country.”
“The only long-term solution is more housing.” “And more investors are purchasing such homes.”
Investor demand is expected to rise.
According to Warren Hogan, an economic advisor with Judo Bank, the present rental problem would certainly encourage additional investors to enter the market.
“We know there will be a supply squeeze and that the population numbers are there.” Rents will continue to climb, as will rental yields; prices will not fall much further and will most likely begin to rise.
“This is an excellent time to enter the market for a long-term investment.”
Some investors appear to be in agreement.
Despite borrowing less, their share of all borrower-accepted loans is increasing.
According to the ABS, investors accounted for 33.7% of all transactions in February 2023, up from 24.2% in February 2021 and 27.3% in February 2020.
