Canberra Unaffacted By Sluggish Property Market, Sees Rise In Rental Yields

For the past ten years, Canberra holds the lowest annual shift in rental prices in Australia, although it's the only capital city in 2015 to surge ahead in rental yields, The Canberra Times reports.

Based on CoreLogic RP Data, median rental prices of detached houses and units in the past ten years have only differed by $122. Analysis also show that capital city rents are recorded to be at their slowest annual pace with softened yields, but Canberra's rental returns have increased compared to a year ago.

Compared to other capitals in Australia, Canberra had the lowest annual rate change in rental prices from 2005 to 2015 at 2.8 per cent.

If you will lease a property today, the median price is at $497, while doing so back in 2005 would have cost $375.

Rental prices have been declined to $497 from peaking at $531 in December 2012.

Median weekly house rental price rose 1.9% at $507 from 2014 to 2015.

The median price for rental units in Canberra had increased in the past 12 months to $408, rising 2.1 per cent.

Rental yields for detached houses have dropped slightly to 4.2 per cent, but there was a 0.2 per cent increase in return on units to 5.2 per cent from the previous 12 months.

It has been a vibrant past decade for Canberra's real estate market, says Nick Proud of Residential Development Council.

"Being a renter in the ACT, it is a good environment to get a reasonable property for a reasonable price. We're not seeing huge increases in the cost of renting so that's good news for those that rent but that being said, we still see a strong reasonable yield for those that are the landlords of those properties. It's a bit of a win-win for the market."

In order to maintain the affordability for the long term, it is important that the land supply remains constant, adds Mr. Proud.

"There's an affordability to investing in the Canberra rental market, there's availability for someone in that middle or lower rungs of the ladder in their career to look at investing in the ACT region, get a reasonable return on their investment and know that it's likely to rent pretty quickly," he said.

However, the same cannot be said for the other capitals, data shows.

It has been a slow rental growth all across Australia in the previous year, and that is said to be caused by construction boom, slowing population growth, low mortgage rates, and heightened investor activity, according to Cameron Kusher of CoreLogic RP Data.

"We've never seen rental growth as sluggish as it is at the moment. Furthermore, we're expecting to see more of the same over the coming months due to increases in the supply of new housing, rental stock and a further slowdown in migration," he said.

The strong public service demographic should be credited, says Mr. Proud.

"The ACT will usually have a reasonable yield based on the strong public service support of the housing sector," he said.

"That demand from the public service is quite unique compared to other capitals in Australia so you'll always see that vibrant residential rental market and that in turn will bring those that are landlords into the market to invest."

That strong yield is also isn't expected to slow down soon, says Mr. Proud.

"We've seen the federal public service cuts been and gone and played through it would seem now, so we should see a strengthening in the rental market from the demand side.

"We are seeing the ACT's economy going quite well and the national economy as well, there's low jobless rates, wages in the ACT are quite strong compared to other capitals, so we should expect that the rental market will remain quite strong for 2016."