VACANCY RATES ON THE RISE – Good news for renters According to the REIQ December 2016 survey vacancies are growing on the Gold Coast. Over three consecutive quarters they have jumped from 1.4% vacancy to 2.5%. What these figures don’t show is that the Gold Coast is developing two rental markets, the new home market in the North Gold Coast essentially above Helensvale where there is a lot of new construction going on and the Southern, established, Gold Coast which is still strong. Our principal trade area for Property Management is Burleigh Heads, Burleigh Waters, Palm Beach, Eleanora and Currumbin although we do manage properties in other suburbs. These suburbs are all within 4220, 4221 and 4223 postcodes and those postcodes represent 10.6% of the total Gold Coast rental property stock. According to the Residential Tenancies Authority bond data vacancies in these three postcodes are running at about 1.5%. The total number we have available for rental properties based on RTA bond figures is 76,200 although no doubt now it is higher than that. The January KPIs for First National Palm Beach were as follows. *Enquires: 1533 *Opens: 110 *Tenants inspected: 465 *Applications taken: 97 *Properties let: 18 *Vacancy rate: 1.0% *Arrears over 2 days: 3.65% *Arrears over 7 days: 1.56% Our advanced technology and large, well established databases give us an exceptional reach when researching for tenants; and it is consistently reflected in our vacancy figures. Postscript You cannot look at the developing situation on the northern Gold Coast without observing that a negative gearing regime restricted to new properties would make the vacancy situation worse. Any slowdown in demand for rental investment property because of oversupply (and one would imagine that that would occur) will ripple through the Gold Coast rental market because most of the higher earning tradespeople working in those areas are not living there; they are living close to the beach. by David Hamilton Relief For Renters: Gold Coast Vacancy Rates on the Rise palmbeachfn.com.au February 2017 First National Palm Beach 15 Palm Beach Ave Palm Beach, Queensland 4221 Phone: 07 5559 9600