South Australia’s property market continues to buck the national trend, as new data reveals it Adelaide one of just three cities where the rental crisis actually eased over the past month.

According to PropTrack’s latest Market Insight report for September, Adelaide’s rental vacancy rate currently sits at 1.06 per cent.

That’s up by 0.02 per cent over the past month at a time when some other states were recording drops of up to 0.29 per cent.

In good news for hopeful tenants, Adelaide’s vacancy rate has increased.

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Despite this, Adelaide’s vacancy rate is 0.22 per cent worse over the quarter, but 0.28 per cent better than this time last year.

In comparison, the national city vacancy rate currently sits at 1.34 per cent, with rental availability worsening by 0.06 per cent over the past month, 0.1 per cent by the past quarter, and just 0.13 per cent better than this time last year.

The only other cities to not record a tightening over the past month were Melbourne at 0.01 per cent improvement, and Darwin, down 0.29 per cent.

James Packham of Harcourts Packham. Picture: Supplied

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Harcourts Packham managing director James Packham said while any easing of vacancy rates was good news for tenants, it was important to remember this was typically a period of low demand.

“It’s not a time of year that a lot of tenants are mobile and looking to secure a new property,” he said.

“That said I think we are turning the corner a little bit, though I think we have a long way to go.

“The lack of housing and difficulties being experienced by prospective tenants in securing property is a highly publicised issue and there are a lot of people working on the problem.

Adelaide’s vacancy rate has eased, for now …

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“The Government is releasing new sites and developers are developing as quickly as they’re able and there are a lot of build-to-rent programs being rolled out, so perhaps it’s possible that what we’re seeing is these solutions being rolled out starting to take effect.”

The vacancy situation in SA’s regional areas, on the other hand, continues to worsen, with the data revealing its vacancy rates down 0.1 per cent over the past month, and 0.14 per cent over the quarter.

It is, however up by 0.4 per cent over the past year, and was the only regional market to record a rise over this period.

PropTrack senior economist Anne Flaherty

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PropTrack senior economist and report author Anne Flaherty said, nationally, it was bad news for renters.

“In unwelcome news for renters, market conditions deteriorated further in September, with vacancies down in both capital city and regional areas,” she said.

“The gap between capital city and regional vacancy rates has consistently widened over the past five months, with regional vacancy now sitting 0.31ppt below capital city levels.

“Compared to March 2020, there were 46 per cent fewer rental properties sitting vacant in September.”