Escaping the hustle and bustle of city life has been all the craze of recent months. The pandemic has seen renters moving to the beaches for lifestyle. With more people working from home, and less commuting to work, singles, families and couples are looking for a change of scenery.
With limited travel and interstate border closures, the Northern beaches offer it all from sandy beaches, cafes, bush, lakes and restaurants. Why wouldn’t you want to live in paradise?
Below we have summarised what we are seeing within the rental market for both free-standing houses and units:
Units:
The rental market for units has continued to be steady with good demand. We are not seeing much in the way of rental prices increasing yet, but demand has been good and we are leasing most properties within 7-10days for units. All suburbs have been performing well, Manly is getting increased interest as it suffered from short-term rental flooding the market and it’s main rental demographic being overseas travellers and visa workers at an all-time low due to the pandemic.
Larger apartments are performing well as many renters look for an additional bedroom or study now that remote working is commonplace.
Houses/townhouses:
There has been a strong market on the beaches for houses, and things have only become stronger for this segment of the market. There is a real lack of available free-standing properties. Many of the larger homes we lease in the area are typically family homes available for a 2-4 year period as the owners take an overseas role or extended travel. We aren’t seeing this happen at the moment due to the pandemic and in fact, are seeing more people returning to their family home. Leaving many renters displaced with a distinct lack of houses available on the market. This has driven prices up, particularly for executive-level homes in the area.
So on a whole, we are seeing a good rental market on the Northern Beaches. Things are much tougher over the spit bridge and for the inner city ring suburbs.
The vacancy rate on a whole for Sydney jumped up from 3.7% in August to 4.3% in October. Inner and middle city rings were at 5.5% while outer Sydney dropped to 2.6%. (Taken from NSW Real Estate Institute vacancy rate survey Oct2020)
Property North Agency’s average days on market for October was 13.2 Days. For October we have leased properties in Allambie, Dee Why, Freshwater, Manly and Narrabeen.
If you know anyone with an apartment or house to lease on the beaches, we have a strong database of tenants actively looking in the area.
We continue to remind landlords of the NSW Moratorium on Evictions which was extended another 6 months in October without any notice to the industry or landlords. This means all lease terminations require a minimum of 90 days notice regardless of whether its the end of the lease, or a breach of the tenancy agreement. These measures have been extended until the 26th of March 2021.
