Professionals Real Estate 
Perth tenants have been urged to lock in rents because of a significant tightening in Perth rental market according to Shane Kempton, Chief Operations Manager for Professional Real Estate Group in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Mr Kempton said that the number of vacant Perth rental properties had dropped by nearly 3,000 over the past two years.
“Professionals is finding that there is already a shortage of rental properties in some areas of Perth because of this decline in vacant rental properties.
“In particular, we are finding very strong demand for established family homes that have easy access to the city centre.
“Professionals are now starting to get multiple applications for family homes that are close to the city centre and these homes are being leased within 7 to 14 days when they become vacant.
“The days of tenants negotiating rents down or demanding extra free services such as lawn mowing for these homes are now truly over in these areas.
“Over 2018, we expect this wave of rental demand to spread across the overall Perth rental market as demand for rental properties starts to outstrip supply.
“Two factors are contributing to the rebound in the Perth rental market.
“Firstly, the State economy is on the rebound with nearly 50,000 new jobs being created and this is encouraging more people to move interstate back to Perth.
“Secondly, the massive building boom that created a major oversupply of houses in Perth has now ended and there are now only modest levels of housing construction.
“The rental market bottomed in Perth mid last year with no noticeable declines in weekly rents being recorded since this.
“Overall, Professionals expects weekly rents to start to increase during 2018 and this rate of increase will accelerate as the year progresses.
“For tenants, the message now is to lock in current weekly rents as long as they can.
“Smart tenants will now be negotiating fixed contracts for at least a year a current market rents.
“For investors, the positive turnaround in the rental market during 2018 should encourage them to buy property in Perth as rental yields will improve.
“The improvement in the rental market is generally a pre-cursor to an upswing in the real estate sales over investors can also expect rising property values in Perth over the next two to three years as the demand for housing outstrips supply,” he said.
