Changes in the Australian Rental Market

Over the past three years, the rental markets in Brisbane and the Gold Coast have experienced dramatic swings. In 2020, as the pandemic worsened, and into the first half of 2021, global travel restrictions dealt a heavy blow to the short-term rental markets in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, with business travellers and tourists all disappearing. This pushed a large number of short-term rental properties into the long-term rental market, while demand for long-term rentals also fell — for example, international students, a mainstay of the long-term rental market, were unable to come, and those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic chose to share with friends or family to cut their rent costs. As a result, the supply and demand balance in the long-term rental market was disrupted, and rents for CBD apartments in particular fell to varying degrees.

However, in the second half of 2021 the situation reversed. As borders reopened, business travellers and tourists gradually returned, and short-term rental properties that had temporarily switched to long-term leases moved back to the short-term market where their leases allowed, at one point creating a shortage of available properties. With international students returning as well, the long-term rental market also became extremely tight. Amid this undersupply, long-term rents increased to varying degrees, generally rising by 10%–30%. New development projects in the Brisbane and Gold Coast property markets are currently very limited, yet migration demand is rising rapidly, particularly the number of migrants from China.