WHAT IS THE VACANCY FACTOR?

When reading the press have you ever seen the President of REIWA referring to Perth’s Vacancy factor and wondered what that is all about?

It is simply a means of easily comparing the demand for rentals over time and also for measuring current demand from tenants for residential accommodation.

The way it is calculated is best illustrated with the following example;

If a real estate agency has 200 rental management and 6 of those are actually vacant then the formula is 6(the number of vacant properties) times 100(required to calculate percentage) divided by 200(the number of rental properties being managed.

In this example the answer is 3% which is close to Perth’s vacancy factor for the past year (2008/9).

This is very close to the long term average for Perth over many years.

However the vacancy factor for the whole of Perth is of little relevance to most owners as it can vary widely by Council area.

For instance our vacancy factor has averaged about half of that for Perth during the past year so always seek local knowledge.

Want to know more?

Call our office on 959 22 222.