Adelaide’s residential vacancy rates remain steady but rents are down and likely to stay down, figures released by SQM Research show.

The figures show Adelaide’s vacancy rate has stayed in the 1.7 per cent to 1.6 per cent range for the last year, while rents have failed to keep pace with inflation.

Managing director of SQM Research Louis Christopher said the Adelaide trend was reflected in most Australian cities.

“At this stage the market is increasingly favouring tenants across the country. While this is not yet a rout for landlords, it certainly is at a stage where rents will unlikely rise above inflation for the next 12 months.

“This means that rental yields will continue to fall, thereby reducing the net cashflows for new property investors in the marketplace.”

Hobart was the only capital city to record a monthly vacancy rate decrease, with the remainder recording either steady figures or rises during the month of June.

Melbourne has edged it way back up toward the 3 per cent mark, revealing a vacancy rate of 2.7 per cent, with Perth not far behind at 2.5 per cent.

Adelaide’s lower figure of 1.6 per cent hasn’t been low enough to produce any upward pressure on rents.

SQM Research’s Asking Rent’s Index has revealed a monthly stagnation in the capital city average’s asking rent, with no change recorded month-on-month for houses, and a 0.7 per cent decrease in asking rents for units.

The Asking Rent for two-bedroom units in Adelaide is around $275, barely a few dollars above the rents of three years ago.

While three-bedroom house rents have risen, they still remain below the level of inflation.

SQM’s calculations of vacancies are based on online rental listings that have been advertised for three weeks or more compared to the total number of established rental properties.

SQM Research Weekly Rents Index
Week ending 20 Jul 2014			Change on prev week	Rolling month % change	Rolling quarter % change	12 month % change	3 year % change
Adelaide	All Houses	356.6	0.4	-0.4%	-0.1%	-0.5%	2.5%
	3 br Houses	360.5	2.5	0.7%	0.5%	1.8%	6.0%
	All Units	277.2	-1.2	-1.3%	0.1%	-1.4%	0.8%
	2 br Units	274.4	-0.4	-0.6%	0.5%	0.3%	1.2%