April 26 REA Insights Weekly Commercial Search Report, 2021
Search activity on realcommercial.com.au continues to grow, with the number of users looking to buy and lease commercial property up over the week.
The volume of searches to buy commercial property increased by 4.4% over the past week, buoyed by growth in every state except for South Australia. Compared to a year ago, buy searches are 58.3% higher.
Strong week-on-week growth in buy searches was seen in most states, with the largest rises recorded in the Northern Territory (6.3%) and Victoria (5.9%), while South Australia (-2.9%) was the only state to see a decline.
Comparing year-on-year, however, the Australian Capital Territory remains well ahead of the other states, with buy searches 86.8% higher. Queensland and Western Australia followed, both recording a 57.2% increase in search volumes over the year.
Searches to lease commercial property are also increasing, recording a 2.4% rise over the week, and a 55.6% rise over the year.
The Australian Capital Territory saw the strongest growth in lease searches over the past week, with volumes up 11.5%. In contrast to buy searches, South Australia saw a strong rise in searches to lease commercial property over the past week, up 7.8%.
Tasmania was the only state to see lease searches fall over the past week, recording an 8.1% drop. Despite this, Tasmania has seen the strongest year-on-year growth, up 71.7%, followed by South Australia (64.8%) and the Australian Capital Territory (57.2%).
Helping to support activity in the commercial property market over the coming months, economic conditions are improving. Unemployment is trending downwards and business conditions, as tracked by NAB, have improved in all states and industries over the first quarter of 2021.
