A friend of mine recently complained about how hard it is to find a suitable flat at the moment in inner city Brisbane, and data on residential vacancies released today by OESR back up this complaint. In inner Brisbane, the vacancy rate is now 1.9% compared with 2.6% one year ago, and vacancy rates have fallen in other regions, too:

This means that new demand is clearing the over-supply of housing that developed out of the pre-GFC building boom, particularly on the Gold Coast. OESR observes:

The vacancy rate for Queensland at 2.9% is the lowest since December 2008 quarter (2.8%).

This should please contractors and workers in the building industry who have experienced lean times in recent years.