The July 2012 rental vacancy survey shows the percentage of available properties is now at 2.2% across the entire Sydney metropolitan basin.

NSW nears 700,000 official landlords as Sydney vacancy rate hits six-year high

By Jonathan Chancellor
Monday, 27 August 2012

Sydney’s rental vacancy rate has hit its highest level in six years, according to the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales.

The July 2012 rental vacancy survey shows the percentage of available properties is now at 2.2% across the entire Sydney metropolitan basin, an increase of 0.4% compared with June.

It is the first time since August 2006 that the average vacancy rate for the entire city has exceeded 2%, said REINSW president Christian Payne.

Significant increases in the percentage of available rental properties were recorded in all areas of Sydney:

Inner suburbs (0-10km from CBD) rose 0.2 to 2.0%

Middle Suburbs (10-25km from CBD), rose 0.5 to 2.3%

Outer Suburbs (more than 25 km from CBD) rose 0.4 to 2.2%

“This translates into more choice for prospective tenants,” Payne notes.

There are now 692,000 NSW landlords with rental bonds lodged officially with the NSW state government's rental bond board.

Some 470,000 are within the Sydney suburbs.

The data was contained in the 100th edition of the Rent and Sales Report, the authoritative source of data on NSW rent movements.

It is published quarterly within two months of the end of the quarter by Housing NSW.

It went past 600,000 for the first time in September 2005.

The first report in June 1987 noted 300,425 rental bonds, of which 195,000 were metropolitian.

The total number of bonds held by the Rental Bond Board does not directly equate to the total number of private rental properties in New South Wales . The two major reasons for this are : a) At any point in time, a percentage of properties are vacant and therefore bonds are not currently lodged for them. It is noted however, that the vacancy rate has been below 3% in Sydney for the last few years. b) Some rental property owners do not collect or lodge bonds for their properties with examples including an informal letting where a person rents a room in the owner's house, a boarding or lodging house where the resident is a licensee rather than a tenant and holiday lettings.

Total number of bonds held

		Houses	Units	Total	Annual change %
	Inner Ring	9962	88789	161390	1.2
1	Ashfield	601	3952	7144	1.5
2	Botany Bay	524	2628	4607	1.0
3	Lane Cove	487	2070	3706	1.1
4	Leichhardt	1857	3260	9422	0.3
5	Marrickville	1915	6286	15849	1.1
6	Mosman	453	2513	4452	-0.2
7	North Sydney	517	11281	17436	0.7
8	Randwick	1486	12435	22077	0.8
9	Sydney	1026	30240	51053	2.2
10	Waverley	581	9014	15159	-0.1
11	Woollahra	515	5110	10485	1.9
	Middle Ring	23783	62829	133353	3.0
12	Auburn	1620	4539	8950	6.5
13	Bankstown	3891	2924	11947	3.2
14	Burwood	516	2059	4349	4.0
15	Canterbury	2462	7258	16296	1.9
16	Canada Bay	1187	5326	9831	4.2
17	Hunters Hill	212	389	884	1.7
18	Hurstville	1444	3470	7423	2.7
19	Kogarah	901	2523	4943	3.2
20	Ku-ring-gai	2209	2159	5863	6.0
21	Manly	557	3956	6684	0.2
22	Parramatta	3229	9069	18941	3.9
23	Rockdale	1911	6195	11491	2.8
24	Ryde	1875	6194	12273	1.7
25	Strathfield	521	2472	4356	1.2
26	Willoughby	1248	4296	9122	0.8
	Outer Ring	70032	46512	175536	2.8
27	Baulkham Hills	3613	1658	8580	3.2
28	Blacktown	10673	2630	19646	3.3
29	Blue Mountains	3470	719	5455	0.5
30	Camden	1910	132	2963	5.1
31	Campbell- town	4802	1080	9503	4.2
32	Fairfield	4922	3787	14074	5.2
33	Gosford	6190	3624	14808	1.1
34	Hawkes-bury	2052	551	4460	2.1
35	Holroyd	2564	4286	10546	2.8
36	Hornsby	3110	3770	10105	3.0
37	Liverpool	4782	3933	13108	2.0
38	Penrith	6176	2192	14100	3.7
39	Pittwater	1312	1412	4191	2.9
40	Sutherland	2969	7068	14829	1.8
41	Warringah	2400	6974	12817	2.1
42	Wollondilly	1249	171	1937	3.4
43	Wyong	7838	2525	14414	2.3
	Rest of GMR	27872	18858	70011	3.6
44	Cessnock	2439	794	4135	6.7
45	Kiama	590	298	1437	0.6
46	Lake Macquarie	6308	2206	12610	3.3
47	Maitland	2971	1251	5696	10.3
48	Newcastle	5997	5091	19274	3.7
49	Port Stephens	2564	1051	5313	3.9
50	Shellharbour	1961	932	4172	3.6
51	Wollongong	5042	7235	17374	1.1
	NEW SOUTH WALES	202344	257167	692130	2.9