This week our analysis team has been reviewing the rental information available through the Residential Tenancy Authority (RTA). The RTA is the government body in Queensland responsible for tracking and holding rental deposits for tenants and landlords. As part of their ‘Open Data Strategy 2013-17’ information is available on both the weekly rental values (the rent people are paying) and the number of bonds lodged (how many units were rented) on a quarterly basis. For our analysts, this provides information on both the trends for rent prices and the amount of activity in the market – two key metrics to gauge an areas growth over time.
The below graph shows the first of these two metrics (average weekly rental values) for both the Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach areas. Some key highlights for our team are:
- Average growth for the period for 1-3 beds in Surfers Paradise was 33%.
- Average growth for the period for 1-3 beds in Broadbeach was 45%.
- Surfers Paradise 3 bedroom units are currently the most expensive product type at an average weekly value of $850 (37% up since Q1 2018).
- In Q1 of 2018, the difference between 1 & 2 bed rents in Broadbeach were only an average of $55/week apart (currently $143).
The second chart below shows the number of bonds lodged in the subject areas for the same period. In this graph we see an inverse to the first, whereby the most volume (unsurprisingly) is attributed to 1 bedroom units. Our key takeaways are:
- The most popular unit type is consistently 2 beds in Surfers Paradise, with 1,566 bonds lodged for the period, or an average of 82 per quarter.
- The least popular unit type is consistently 3 beds in Broadbeach with a total of 792 bonds lodged or 42 per quarter.
- All unit types are relatively stable for the whole period with the most notable deviations in the data coming from a consistent spike in H2 of each year (typically in September).
Conclusion
At Leith Group, we anticipate as additional high-quality stock continues to come online for the Gold Coast, the upwards trending rental values will continue this same pattern. Furthermore, the additional stock coming to market will have a positive impact on the number of bonds lodged as a mixture of owner occupiers and investors take-up the new product.
In the coming weeks, we will review the rental data against the trending values of new build stock to see what (if any) relationship these two datasets have.
