Renters’ rates, driven seemingly ever higher by tight housing supply in Australia’s capital cities, may finally be topping out. The latest figures from RP Data, a leading housing statistics firm, show that during the second quarter of this year, weekly housing rates dropped 3.5% while unit rates fell 0.6% across Australia.

Although no relief’s in sight for Darwin, where rates continued their rise with a 6.0% gain, renters paid 5.0% less in Sydney and 6.0% less in Canberra, lowering the median week’s rent to $498 in June 2009 from $530 in March 2009.

Rental rates have been forced higher in recent years by the less than 3.0% vacancies rate across all of Australia’s capital cities. However, rental rates decreased slightly each month in the second quarter, leading experts to wonder if rates had perhaps turned a corner and could offer additional relief to renters in the months to come.

Source: News.com.au