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Speaker 1: Have you heard much about people struggling to get into

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Speaker 1: the rental market at the moment? Or you know what

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Speaker 1: are you being told when it comes to sort of

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Speaker 1: buying and selling, or are you in the market for

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Speaker 1: buying a home and are you finding a little bit

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Speaker 1: more difficult than what you maybe did six months ago. Well,

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Speaker 1: joining us on the line to talk more about this

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Speaker 1: is the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory CEO

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Speaker 1: Quentin Killian.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Quentin, Morning, Katie. Quentin.

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Speaker 1: I tell you what, there's a lot of discussion at

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Speaker 1: the moment, anecdotally about people struggling to get into the

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Speaker 1: rental market or struggling to find a rental Is this

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Speaker 1: just sort of hearsay or what are you you know,

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Speaker 1: what are you finding.

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Speaker 3: At the moment? Really that the market has changed very

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Speaker 3: dramatically and very quickly, pretty much since we opened the

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Speaker 3: borders up. So we've moved from a vacancy rate of

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Speaker 3: almost eight percent at the start of the year, so

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Speaker 3: it was around seven point eight seven point nine to

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Speaker 3: a vacancy rate that at our last report was around

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Speaker 3: about two percent, but anecdotally I'm hearing is probably more

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Speaker 3: likely to be at one percent. Or slightly under. So

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Speaker 3: we've basically turned around the entire rental market, and not

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Speaker 3: just the rental market, but the sales market within the

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Speaker 3: half year period of the pandemic, largely due to people. Well,

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Speaker 3: there's a lot of people returning, so a lot of

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Speaker 3: Territorians have decided they don't want to be down south

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Speaker 3: during this pandemic, so they've come home. But as the

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Speaker 3: Chief Minister pointed out, we're getting something akin to about

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Speaker 3: three hundred people a week that are coming across the

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Speaker 3: border doing their quarantine and then staying.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 3: Now, when you put those sort of numbers into a

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Speaker 3: relatively small environment, because we're still talking a housing market

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Speaker 3: here with seventeen to twenty thousand properties under management, that

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Speaker 3: soaks up the stock very very quickly.

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Speaker 1: It certainly does Quentin. I mean, it would be unbelievable,

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Speaker 1: or it is quite unbelievable. I suppose for some of

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Speaker 1: us to think that the population has grown that much

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Speaker 1: in the last six months, but I guess who knows

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Speaker 1: what people's behavior is during a pandemic, could at all?

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Speaker 3: Well, there was a media story came out the other

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Speaker 3: day that one of the venues around here was celebrating

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Speaker 3: one hundred thousand marked. The official number from the government

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Speaker 3: is that since July seventeen or whenever it was we

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Speaker 3: opened up the borders, we've had one hundred thousand people

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Speaker 3: come across the border. Now, what would be good is

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Speaker 3: to keep those people. I don't know if that's a

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Speaker 3: reality or whether they're likely to return back to Melbourne

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Speaker 3: or to wherever they've come from once the coronavirus issue

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Speaker 3: is gone, but it would be fabulous if they found

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Speaker 3: that the lifestyle and the territory was what they were

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Speaker 3: looking for and that they could work remotely or do

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Speaker 3: what they want to do from up here.

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Speaker 1: Now. Quentin, obviously you know that's talking rentals. When you

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Speaker 1: talk sales wise, how are things going at the moment.

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Speaker 3: It's the busiest market we've had in pretty close to

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Speaker 3: five years. Again, if you try to nail the absolute

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Speaker 3: reason why, I don't think anybody can put their finger

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Speaker 3: on it. But what we are finding is that the

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Speaker 3: lower interest rates, in particular that you're now getting mortgages

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Speaker 3: that start with a two rather than a three or four.

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Speaker 3: The opportunity to get incentives through government tax, stamp duty

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Speaker 3: rebates and so forth is a real incentive for first

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Speaker 3: home buyers to have a look at the market. I

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Speaker 3: think they're realizing also that the price point isn't going

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Speaker 3: to stay where it is at the moment. That the

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Speaker 3: price point, with the interest that we're getting from down

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Speaker 3: South in particular through investors and people looking at the

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Speaker 3: property market here, is starting to push the median price up.

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Speaker 3: So what we're seeing is a lot of first time

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Speaker 3: buy has been very sensible and saying it's time to

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Speaker 3: get into the market before it moves.

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Speaker 2: All right, so let's talk numbers.

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Speaker 1: Obviously, you've said with the vacancy rate when it comes

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Speaker 1: to rentals, did you say less than one percent at

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Speaker 1: the moment?

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Speaker 3: That's how anecdotal evidence. We're actually compiling the September quarter

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Speaker 3: statistics at the moment, so we don't have any quantifiable

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Speaker 3: data to back that up. But if you go back

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Speaker 3: to the previous quarter, which was the June quarter, we

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Speaker 3: were already at a round about two percent vacancy rate

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Speaker 3: by then, and we've had a lot more activity over

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Speaker 3: the September quarter. So my best guess, my best estimate

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Speaker 3: is that we're going to be at one percent or below.

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Speaker 1: All right, let's talk sales then, when it comes to

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Speaker 1: those numbers. How are we going sales wise for Darwin

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Speaker 1: and the to Darwin and Palmerston Regents.

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Speaker 3: Well quite dramatically. Again, we're still waiting on the absolutely

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Speaker 3: quantifiable data to be produced for our September quarter data,

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Speaker 3: but what we've seen from sites like real estate dot

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Speaker 3: com dot au, we've seen it the numbers in the

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Speaker 3: market dropped from something akin to around about eighteen hundred

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Speaker 3: available properties down to around four or five hundred, so

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Speaker 3: we've seen a lot of the stock moving very very rapidly,

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Speaker 3: and anecdotally talking to our members, we're seeing properties moving

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Speaker 3: on the market within a week to two weeks of

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Speaker 3: being on the market. Whereas they used to take ninety

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Speaker 3: to one hundred and twenty days to move, they're down

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Speaker 3: to essentially buyers coming in, liking it, putting an offer

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Speaker 3: in and the property's gone within the week.

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Speaker 2: Goodness me. And are those prices going up.

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Speaker 3: Again? I need to wait for the September dollars to

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Speaker 3: be absolutely sure. That in the Dune quarter we did

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Speaker 3: see around about a one point six percent increase in

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Speaker 3: the median price, and I suspect that we will see

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Speaker 3: an increase in the median price in September by how much.

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Speaker 3: I couldn't honestly tell you, I don't think it's going

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Speaker 3: to leap up, but certainly there is upward pressure on

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Speaker 3: that pricing now that the stock is coming down and

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Speaker 3: the demand is back in the market, that will automatically

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Speaker 3: start pushing pricing up.

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Speaker 1: Now, Quintin, I guess the you know, the other side

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Speaker 1: of this, or the flip side of this, as we

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Speaker 1: sort of touched on, is that, you know, it's keeping

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Speaker 1: these people that are that are maybe in the territory

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Speaker 1: at the moment and taking a rental property or buying

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Speaker 1: a home, it's keeping them here.

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Speaker 2: What you know.

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Speaker 1: I guess I'm kind of thinking what concerns will we

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Speaker 1: have if we all of a sudden had developers or

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Speaker 1: others thinking all right, well, I'm going to build I'm

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Speaker 1: going to build some more units.

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Speaker 2: Do you think that we'd end up with an the sort.

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Speaker 1: Of potential glut where those people then leave and it's

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Speaker 1: a bit of a false market.

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Speaker 3: That is a real risk because we saw that happen

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Speaker 3: with the IMPETX boom, where developers took a punt. Because

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Speaker 3: you're going to remember that somebody coming in to build

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Speaker 3: a housing development for instance, has to crystal ballgaze two

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Speaker 3: or three years into the future. By the time they've

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Speaker 3: got the plans through DCA, dug the hole, built the building,

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Speaker 3: they've got to speculate that in that time frame ahead,

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Speaker 3: we're going to have a static market that is going

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Speaker 3: to absorb that, and that the demand is going.

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Speaker 2: To be there.

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Speaker 3: So I suspect that developers may hold off until they

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Speaker 3: sort of see what's happening with the marketplace down south,

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Speaker 3: as far as COVID nineteen goes, to see whether we

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Speaker 3: are likely to get that outturn of people again once

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Speaker 3: travel opens up and once we all get a jab

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Speaker 3: and things change. Unfortunately, if they do hold off, the

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Speaker 3: catch twenty two is that that keeps our supply held

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Speaker 3: very tightly because there's no real new stock coming into

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Speaker 3: the market. So in order to open up the supply again,

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Speaker 3: we need new stock to come in. But if we

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Speaker 3: bring that new stock in and we do get an

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Speaker 3: exodus of people out, then yes, we jump back up

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Speaker 3: to very high vacancy rates again.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, it's a difficult juggled by the sounds of things.

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Speaker 3: It is. It's a very very delicate balance. But I'm

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Speaker 3: really keen that hopefully the fact that the territories had

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Speaker 3: such good press during COVID nineteen that this actually opens

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Speaker 3: up a whole new vista for people to go, Hey,

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Speaker 3: we'd never even thought about that. Now that we're here,

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Speaker 3: we do love it. We're going to stay.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope the same, Quentin, I really do. Mate.

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Speaker 2: Lovely to talk to you this morning. Thank you so

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Speaker 2: very much for your time.

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Speaker 3: Always a pleasure, Gadie, thank you.

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Speaker 1: That is Quentin Killian there, the Real Estate Institute of

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Speaker 1: the Northern Territory CEO, And yeah, I tell you what,

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Speaker 1: talking through some of those anecdotal numbers, but also even

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Speaker 1: talking through the most recent numbers that they've got, it

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Speaker 1: seems as though those vacancy rates at the moment are

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Speaker 1: incredibly low. Lots of people in the territory, those taking

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Speaker 1: those rental properties or utilizing or getting into those rental properties,

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Speaker 1: I suppose is probably the right way of saying things.

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Speaker 1: And also the number of houses and units up for sale,