Rental Vacancy Just Hit An All-Time Low And Yes, The Sharehouse Market Is Cooked Too

Australia’s rental vacancy rate reached an all-time low in May and has continued to break records since, while sharehouse vacancy also plummeted this year as unaffordability locks more people into renting long-term. Yes, we can blame our bonkers house prices. Even though lockdowns made many people never want to live with housemates again, as it turns out finding a room in a sharehouse is still fucking hard. “Despite the initial increase in vacancy in the pandemic, demand in inner-city areas has returned and vacancy is now low,” Flatmates.com.au Community Manager Claudia Conley told PEDESTRIAN.TV. “Occupancy is back to pre-pandemic levels and in some areas demand is far outstripping supply for rooms in sharehouses.” Nationally, there was a ratio of five people looking for each room in a sharehouse available on Flatmates.com.au at the end of the financial year. It dipped slightly since a two-year peak in March 2022 when there were eight people for each room available, but this is still bad news. Zooming in on some areas the situation gets much