After a minor improvement in December, the level of rental vacancies decreased again last month in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. The vacancy rate in Melbourne was 2 per cent last month, down from 2.3 per cent in December.
It is now exactly six years since the rate was above 3 per cent. The market was balanced in January 2005, when 3.3 per cent was recorded.
Currently, the area with the fewest vacancies in Melbourne is the outer suburbs, where last month's vacancy rate was 1.4 per cent. The inner suburbs ? those within 10 kilometres of the CBD ? recorded 1.9 per cent, with most vacancies found in the suburbs within
four kilometres. The middle suburbs recorded a vacancy rate of 2.3 per cent, down from 3.1 per cent in December.
The low vacancy rate will continue to put upward pressure on rental costs. It should also encourage more investors into the market but, due to the lack of increase in housing construction, there are still too few properties to meet demand.
In regional Victoria, the vacancy rate remained lower than the metropolitan area at 1.3 per cent. There has been a substantial improvement in the Bendigo area, where the vacancy rate was 0.1 per cent in October and is now 0.9 per cent.
In the Ballarat region, a vacancy rate of 0.7 per cent was recorded for the second month and the Geelong area recorded an improvement from 1.4 per cent to 1.7 per cent.
