Brisbane the city with the lowest home vacancies

Listed, the top 10 areas with the fewest available homes were:

1. Brisbane (0.002 per cent)
2. Gold Coast (0.0024 per cent)
3. Melbourne (0.0031 per cent)
4. Mornington Peninsula (0.0032 per cent)
5. Sunshine Coast (0.0043 per cent)
6. Central Coast (0.0044 per cent)
7. ACT (0.0048 per cent)
8. Sydney (0.0052 per cent)
9. Moreton Bay (0.0058 per cent)
10. Shoalhaven (0.0061 per cent)

In stark contrast to this were the vacancy rates of more rural areas, which fared much better. The suburbs with the highest proportion of empty homes were:

1. Darwin Waterfront Precinct (3.7 per cent)
2. Yarrabah, Queensland (3 per cent)
3. Palm Island, Queensland (2.9 per cent)
4. Peppermint Grove, Western Australia (2.8 per cent)
5. Hope Vale, Queensland (2 per cent)
6. Roxby Downs, South Australia (1.9 per cent)
7. Diamantina, Queensland (1.4 per cent)
8. Wiluna, Western Australia (1.35 per cent)
9. Cue, Western Australia (1.1 per cent)
10. Wyalkatchem, Western Australia (1 per cent)

Top Removals general manager Idan Peretz drove home how rural living can make for less stressful home hunting: “It’s surprising to see Darwin Waterfront Precinct ranking as the place with the highest number of empty residential properties in Australia, given that many other regional and rural cities rank among the top 10.

“Meanwhile, Sydney, Australia’s most populated city ranks in seventh position with the lowest number of vacant residential properties, with the likes of Brisbane and Melbourne outranking it. This shows that cities, at a varying range of economic and social status, are not immune to patterns of residential housing supply.”

The attractiveness of regional areas has been witnessed with increased investor activity outside our cities. As recently discussed by Broker Daily, a sister publication of REB, the ongoing lack of housing supply and affordability in Australia’s capital cities are prompting more home buyers to explore regional property markets.

“When analysing key property metrics like rental yields, vacancy rates, population growth, and demand in both rental and owner-occupied segments, it’s clear that regional investment markets in North Queensland and Western Australia are the most popular,” said Brisbane-based buyer’s agent Andrew Pizzino.

“Mandurah, in particular, remains a top investor hotspot. As Western Australia’s largest regional city, it’s steadily transitioning from a mining town to an affordable alternative to Perth.

“Plus, the quality of properties at reasonable price points is generally quite high in the Sunshine State.”