Healthy Qld rental market ‘worlds away’ as crisis continues

The slight increase was led by 26 Queensland regions where vacancy rates relaxed slightly and 11 that held firm on the December quarter’s results, while 13 markets tightened marginally.

Southern Downs and Goondiwindi regions reported the tightest market across the state, with just 0.1 per cent of rental properties available to new tenants, while Redlands Bay, which boasts a 5.5 per cent, is the region most welcoming to tenants.

Popular tourist destination Noosa reported the largest vacancy rate increase (1.1 per cent to 2.3 per cent) across the state, one of several popular tourist destinations and coastal regions that reported increases in vacancy rates.

Central Queensland municipality of Mount Isa entered a healthy vacancy rate range for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic three years ago.

Antonia Mercorella, REIQ chief executive officer, blamed a “grossly insufficient level of housing supply,” for the current market woes.

“When we’re seeing these very tight vacancy rates persisting right across the state, it’s highlighting the importance of ensuring that we keep levels of property investment up so that we can maintain roofs over the heads of our growing population,” she added.

She described Queensland’s need for rental supply as desperate, but added that “investors are not being encouraged to put their savings into property.

“On the contrary, often they’re being deterred and punished,” she declared.

Recently, Ms Mercorella slammed the state government for surcharges placed on foreign investors, including a 7 per cent surcharge applied to stamp duty in 2016 and the additional 2 per cent surcharge applied to land tax introduced in 2019, which she described as a “cash grab.”

She noted that the government’s recent rental cap proposal, floated earlier this year, indicates “no grasp on basic economics”.

Ms Mercorella called such government initiatives “alarming”.

“Making investment less appealing and demonising investors is not the right solution,” she insisted, calling on all stakeholders to focus on “the underlying cause of the rental crisis and increasing housing supply, including social housing.”

She explained the state spent less per capita on social housing than any other state or territory, noting that “even with the Housing Investment Fund, it will only rise to second last.”

“This under investment reached its nadir from 2015 onwards and has had a direct correlation with the crisis today.”

With the state about to undertake phase two rental reforms, she explained the REIQ’s position will be “advocating strongly for fair and balanced residential tenancies legislation in Queensland that supports all stakeholders involved in rental relationships.”

“It’s a delicate balancing act, making sure that the laws provide adequate protections for tenants and also that they allow a certain amount of flexibility and freedom to property owners to ensure that they are prepared to keep providing their property as a private rental,” she concluded.