Rental vacancy rate drops

Finding it hard to find a place to rent?

The REIV has released its March rental vacancy rates survey showing that vacant rental properties remain difficult to find, with a recorded vacancy rate for Melbourne of 1.5 per cent compared to 1.7 per cent in February.

REIV CEO Enzo Raimondo said that the easiest suburbs in which to find a rental home in Melbourne are within four km of the CBD, where the vacancy rate has now averaged two per cent for the first quarter of 2010.

“A vacancy rate of two per cent is well below what it should be but, in contrast to the past five years, represents an improvement.

“In other parts of the city there was unfortunately little improvement. The vacancy rate in suburbs between four and 10km from the CBD dropped from 1.4 to one per cent, which is the lowest it has been for 12 months.

“Vacancies in the middle suburbs, between 10 and 20km from the CBD, remained stable at 1.7 per cent and had eased slightly in the outer suburbs to 1.7 per cent from 1.6 per cent in February.

At Changing Places we are experiencing strong demand for rental properties and to attract more rental stock we are offering a discounted management rate to new landlords of 4.4% for the first 6 months. This allows the landlord to try out the Changing Places management team and see if we are as good as we say we are!

Go to www.changingplaces.com.au/landlords.html to find out more.