Wednesday 18 August 2010

A tale of two cities: Cairns and Sydney

"Sydney's rental market remains tight, with average rents rising by $10 a week in the past three months, and by $20 a week in the past year, new figures indicate. Real Estate Institute quarterly figures show the rental vacancy rate in Sydney was 1.2 per cent in May."

-
Sydney Morning Herald, 17 August, 2010


"RENTAL prices have dropped by up to $100 a week in Cairns, forcing some landlords to offer weeks of free tenancy and pay for renovations. Real estate figures show that the city's rental prices have plummeted by up to 20 per cent."
- The Cairns Post, 17 August, 2010


Local economic observer, Mark Beath says that given the comment by a real estate agent in the
Cairns Post article, that the local rental market status is a consequence of a population drop the regional Australian Bureau of Statistics employment stats (to be released this Thursday - maybe interesting!), the ABS has revised the population benchmarks this month used in the employment stats and as expected.

"This didn't change the unemployment rates in the National stats released last week , but did change the estimates of aggregate numbers employed," Mark Beath says. "I believe they were revised up on higher than anticipated population growth since 2006. I'll be curious to see the implied population for Cairns in the ABS data this week, but suspect revised data will not be assuming a population decline?"

Numbers for thought...

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