The Springfield Halloween storm combined with Covid-19 circumstances appear to be the cause of a rental crisis in Ipswich.
The vacancy rate in Ipswich as of December 2020 was 1.1 percent according to SQM Research and marks a huge difference to the December 2019 rate of 2.8 percent.
And there’s been no improvement in the New Year. Coronis Business Development Manager Jess Cleveland said the Ipswich vacancy rate has now dropped to 0.9 percent.
“Normally we’ve seen vacancy rates sit at around 2.4 percent but now they’re sitting down at the 0.9 percent so there are significantly less properties available on the property market at the moment.”
Ms Cleveland said a combination of the October 31 hail storm rendering houses unliveable and owner occupiers buying up houses during the Covid-19 peak, had made the Ipswich rental market highly competitive with very few properties.
“Obviously it [the storm] had a strong impact on the Greater Springfield market in that a lot of properties were deemed unliveable after the storm and therefore it did reduce the pool of properties for tenants to rent during that time,” she said.
“And because of that storm obviously a lot of people stayed where they were and the people who did need to relocate consumed the properties that were available at the time.”
Ms Cleveland said last year many investors were looking to sell, but the people buying were not looking to rent to new tenants.
“Six months ago, at the height of Covid we had a lot of that happening, where owners were looking to reduce their portfolios and owner occupiers saw that as an opportunity to purchase,” she said.
“With those properties in the area, normally if they were up for sale they would have been equally taken up by investors and owner occupiers but we did see a lot more of them taken up by the owner occupiers.”
Ms Cleveland said that now with a reduced pool of properties in Ipswich to rent, Ipswich residents were placing ‘blanket applications’ on properties, some up to ten applications at a time.
“What we’re seeing is a huge influx of applications on rental properties as soon as they go on the market, prior to anyone being able to view the properties,” she said.
But in the rush to obtain housing, Ms Cleveland said many hopeful renters were submitting incomplete applications.
“A large portion of those blanket applications are incomplete applications,” she said.
“In that case, those applicants are going to be sent an automatic email saying look this is what you need to do and if they don’t fix that then due to the amount of applications we’re getting, those ones just go to the bottom of the pile.”
Ms Cleveland said the rental market was particularly hard for families looking for more than three bedrooms.
“The harder suburbs at the moment are those that have the four-bedroom housing and the ones that are going to be attracting more families,” she said.
“So that might be some of the newer developments in the Brassall, Redbank Plains, Collingwood Park areas and obviously Springfield Lakes because that has been reduced significantly,” she said.
But the housing battle isn’t set to last forever. Ms Cleveland said there would soon be more properties on the market but those applying would still need to act fast with accurate information.
“There are more properties coming on the market soon so it’s not something that’s going to have a long term effect,” she said.
“My recommendation to anyone out there applying for rentals would be to make sure the application is completed correctly with all the documentation.
“Just read through the first page of the application to make sure you’ve got everything and that will put you ahead of the pack.
“If you’re really interested in a particular rental property get in contact with the agency let them know that you are really interested and if there’s anything further they need from you.
“Agents work under time pressure and if you wait a day or two to reply to them or get information to them, chances are someone else will have been approved for that property.”