Rental First
What is this index about?
REA Insights Weekly Rental Demand Index is a weekly metric that looks at the volume of high-intent renter activity on the realestate.com.au website and app and tracks that activity over time.
Specifically, it looks at how users are behaving when they interact with live rental listings.
The characteristics of serious or high-intent renter activity includes but is not limited to; the number of visits to a listing, looking at the photos for a listing multiple times, saving the property, sharing the property and/or making an enquiry with the agent.
Who is it useful for?
For property investors the index indicates the likelihood that they will be able to rent out their property.
For renters looking for new rental accommodation the index gives a good indication of the level of competition they can expect when they look at and apply for properties.
Higher renter activity on a listing would suggest greater competition for that property or property type. In this index we’ve aggregated the high-intent rental activity and analysed it by state.
What is the latest data actually showing as at 2 August 2020?
Despite a weakening in rental demand over the past 10 weeks, high-intent rental activity remains 50 per cent higher than it was at the same time last year.
House demand for renters was lower week ending 2 August 2020 (graph below).
Unit demand for renters was higher week ending 2 August 2020 (graph below).
Read more from the source:
https://www.realestate.com.au/insights/august-5-rea-insights-weekly-rental-demand-report-2020/