With residential vacancy rates at an all-time low and rents rising, the property industry has called for whichever party wins government to address the rental shortage crisis. Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) chair Nicola McDougall says vacancy rates are at 16-year record lows as a result of below-average investor activity in the past five years.

CoreLogic analysis shows investors accounted for 32.6% of mortgage demand by value in January 2022, up from a recent record low of 22.9%, but still below the decade average of 34.9%.

McDougall says the main reasons investors have not been buying is because of the lending restrictions imposed by banks and other disincentives by state and federal governments.

“It’s not enough for political parties to simply offer piecemeal funding for affordable housing when there is currently a critical undersupply of rental properties that was written in the cards in 2017 when lending restrictions came into play,” she says.

She called for sustainable policies to increase the supply of rental properties.