July 2021, Australians are now dealing with the economic effects of COVID-19, needless to say the pandemic has effected every facet of Australian society. The property sector like alot of other industries is certainly not immune to the ramifications of economic pressures caused by global pandemics. Many property segments of the property sector have been hit hard, retail shops, shopping centres, commercial office buildings, owners of residential investment properties have endured reduced or lost rents doing their part to support Australians in their time of need.
According to the ABS there are over 2,000,000 residential properties investors and at least 70% of those investors have one only investment property. It’s a cottage industry.
Towards the end of 2017 the development boom in apartment buildings in capital cities across Australia started to slow, in part some regions and in capital cities there was an oversupply of apartments and some apartment values decreased. The decrease in capital value was not the only effect for new stock on market, existing and older stock was
becoming harder to rent. Once net of migration inflows and other less static increases of population filtered their way through the rental market, the rental market started to stabilise towards the end of 2019.Then COVID -19 hit and destabilised the rental market taking rents and vacancies to rates not seen for many years in most high demand rental regions.
“The biggest risk to landlords is the lack of proactivity, to stay in the game change is the key survival”
How do we think outside the box, in surviving the risks of property ownership, especially if you are a property investor landlord who has one investment property and your investment property is older relative to the newer younger stock coming onto the rental market. What tools are available in your landlord kit bag to re-evaluate your properties value proposition.