Capital city rents continue to rise as vacancy rates fall further throughout Australia.SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher says vacancy rates in the smaller capital cities are below 1% and around 2% in Sydney and Melbourne.Vacancies are under 1% in most regionalmarkets.Capital city average asking rents have increased to $627 per week for houses and $447 per week for units. This follows significant decreases in vacancy rates in all cities in the past month and over the past year.Christopher’s analysis found that Perth, Brisbane and Canberra had the largest increase in asking rents for houses during the four-week period.The latest increases mean asking rents have increased by 14% in the past 12 months for houses and by 8.5% for units.“Given a dramatic tightening in vacancy rates, we are seeing an ongoing acceleration in weekly market rents across the capital cities,” he says. “We can expect capital city rents to rise by over 10% in 2022.”
