December 7th REA Insights Weekly Commercial Search Report, 2020

Commercial property search volumes continued to trend lower last week.

Last week, the volume of searches for commercial properties for sale fell by -1.8 per cent. with search volumes lower in most states.

Victoria (0.2%) and Western Australia (1.7%) were the only states in which for sale search volumes rose last week, with the largest falls recorded in Australian Capital Territory (-9%) and South Australia (-4.9%).

Buyer search volumes are now -8.3 per cent lower than their historic peak and lower across all states.

Australian Capital Territory (-44.4%) and Tasmania (-21.3%) have recorded the largest falls in for sale search volumes and Western Australia (-2.8%) and Northern Territory (-7.6%) have seen the smallest falls.

Compared to volumes a year ago, buyer search volumes are higher in all states and have increased by 28.3 per cent nationally.

The greatest increases year-on-year have been in Northern Territory (158.1%) and Western Australia (54.4%) and the smallest in Tasmania (10.3%) and Australian Capital Territory (13.6%).

Following an increase over the previous week, the volume of searches for properties for lease fell by -2.5 per cent last week to reach their lowest volume in eight weeks.

Western Australia (2.9%) and Tasmania (7.0%) were the only states in which lease searches rose last week, while the biggest weekly falls were in Northern Territory (-26.4%) and Australian Capital Territory (-7.2%).

Weekly lease search volumes as at the end of last week were -10.9 per cent lower than their peak.

Victorian (-12.2%) and Western Australian (-13.6%) lease search volumes are currently closes to their peak and they are furthest away in Northern Territory (-30.7%) and South Australia (-20.7%).

Although there has been some recent weakening of lease search volumes they are higher than a year ago in all states and up 32.4 per cent nationally.

Relatively speaking, lease search volumes are only marginally higher over the year in Australian Capital Territory (9.4%) and South Australia (16.1%), while the greatest increases have been in Northern Territory (34.4%) and Tasmania (30.8%).

As the economy continues to return to more normal conditions and the recovery from the recession continues, I expect we will see businesses being much more focused on costs such as accommodation.

After the seasonal slowdown over the coming weeks I expect that we will continue to see strong for sale and lease search volumes in early 2021.