Rental vacancies hit record low in Geraldton as REIWA and real estate agents say more investment needed

Geraldton’s rental vacancy rate has dropped to a record low, as experts say more investment is needed to meet demand. According to the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA), rental vacancies dropped to 0.8 per cent in February in the Geraldton area — the first time the rate has dropped below 1 per cent. Local real estate agents have said an influx of people coming into Geraldton has put pressure on the rental market. Ray White Geraldton’s Henry Vantiel said more people were coming to Geraldton for work, and are competing with each other to find a place to live. “There seems to be a lot of people coming here for work, and if companies can get houses to put their workers in they will, but we don’t really have any to give them,” he said. Mr Vantiel said there was a slowdown in the construction of houses during the pandemic, and now the building industry was struggling to keep up. There are around 30 houses on the rental market in the Greater Geraldton region. Activewest Real Estate agent Phil Sorgiovanni said it was even more difficult for people moving to Geraldton if they had special conditions, for example a house big enough for their family or close to a school or their work. “If you’ve got 30 houses, and you need a four by two, how many are of those are really available?” Mr Sorgiovanni said. “It’s a lot tighter than it shows, and that is very, very tight.” Rental vacanies through regional WA dropped 0.16 per cent to 1.61 per cent in February, according to data from PropTrack. REIWA president Joe White said it was an issue being seen in large regional cities, including Busselton, Bunbury and Albany. Although he thinks things may ease up slightly over the year, he doesn’t think it will improve significantly for quite some time “We’re expecting things to improve over the year and have some relief, the concern after that is there’s very few building sign ups after that,” he said. Mr Vantiel agreed the situation would likely not improve anytime soon, and said this was the longest period he has seen such a rental shortage. “It’s probably a worsening situation and we’re not sure how that’s going to change for a while, because demand is much higher than supply,” Mr Vantiel said. The three experts said more investment was needed to improve the supply of rentals. Mr Sorgiovanni said many people had sold their investment properties over the last three years. “What we need to do is attract more investors into the market, to enable more houses to come,” he said. Mr White added: “We can’t conceal or deny that we’ve got a problem, we just don’t have enough houses. “We need more people investing in property, it’s as simple as that.”