If you’re a property investor and you own a unit, chances are you experienced a large jump in your rental income during 2023.
Between the December quarters of 2022 and 2023, Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide all experienced double-digit percentage increases in their median unit rents, according to Domain.
Darwin had a smaller increase and Canberra experienced no change, while Hobart went backwards.
Unit rents outperformed house rents in every capital city over 2023. This might be because the large increase in house rents over the past few years has driven some renters from dearer houses to cheaper units, leading to more growth in demand for units than houses.
Investor borrowing jumps 26.5% in nine months
Property investor borrowing activity has now increased for nine consecutive months, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Between February 2023, when investor activity bottomed out, and November 2023, the most recent month for which we have data, investor borrowing jumped 26.5%.
By contrast, owner-occupier borrowing rose 18.6% during the same period.
Rents are growing strongly – November was the 40th consecutive monthly rise in rents, according to CoreLogic – which might explain the growing number of investors entering the market.
