The report found a total of 133,968 STRA properties were available in Australia over the March quarter, with a large portion of them located on the nation’s eastern coast.
Hayden Groves, president of the REIA, believes the report’s findings have implications for the impact of STRA on the long-term housing market.
“As a crude equation, 133,968 on first glance appears to fill the forecast shortage of dwellings Australia will face by next financial year of 106,000,” he noted.
While acknowledging STRA serves a purpose within the Australian property ecosystem as “an essential part of meeting high demand for domestic tourism accommodation”, Mr Groves insisted the increased presence of properties on STRA sites “is a driving factor behind the rental crisis”.
For residents on the nation’s east coast, the increased portion of STRA properties is worrying given it’s “where most of the crucial long-term housing is desperately needed”, he said.
According to the report, over eight in 10 (81.9 per cent) of Australian STRA listings are dwellings supposedly capable of seamlessly transitioning between the long-term rental market and short-term rental market.
“Dwellings suitable for long-term rentals increase on short-stay accommodation platforms by 3.7 per cent over the [March] quarter and 26.6 per cent over the past year,” Mr Groves noted.
The financial allures of short-term renting are proving to be a primary reason behind most Australian capital cities having more STRA properties available than long-term rentals, the report found.
In Sydney, it would require just 122 days of successful short-term letting to make the same income as leasing a property for one year on the long-term rental market, based on calculations deducing the gross annual income of a two-bedroom dwelling on the city’s private rental market to be around $33,900.
Similarly, in Melbourne, where the gross annual income on a two-bedroom