REA Insights Commercial Property Snapshot, June 2021

May 2021 was the second-highest month on record for both ‘Buy’ and ‘Lease’ searches on realcommercial.com.au, with Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania the standout performers.

Buyers also appear increasingly interested in the land/development category, which is showing robust growth in both search volumes and views per listing.

In this month’s commercial snapshot, we continue to track search volumes over time and demand by category. We also provide a view of user behaviour by analysing the most-searched keywords per asset class as well as looking at the most popular commercial property listings for the month.

How are search volumes tracking?

At a national level, ‘Buy’ searches on realcommercial.com.au are up 34% compared to the same time last year, as the year-on-year figure stabilises after the two volatile months of March and April 2020.

Buyer search volumes hit record heights in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, which respectively recorded 8%, 7% and 9% month-on-month growth.

In the leasing sector, national search volumes are 16% higher than what they were last year. However, relative to the ‘Buy’ segment, it appears commercial leasing will take longer to recover from the effects of the pandemic.

The strongest market for commercial leasing in May was the Australian Capital Territory, which grew 4% month-on-month to a new record high.

Excluding the two outlier months previously mentioned, there were three distinct categories that recorded the highest year-on-year growth this month; office (85%), land/development (62%) and medical/consulting (83%) sectors.

What are people and businesses looking to buy?

The land/development category outperformed the other categories on views per listing this month, recording 120% year-on-year growth and a 16% month-on-month increase.

In Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania views per listings were more than double what they were in May last year despite the decrease in the number of active listings this month.

Warehouses too are in high demand, with the category recording the second largest year-on-year growth (98%) and a month-on-month increase of 9%.

Again, Victoria and Queensland drove the growth in this category, with year-on-year growth of 129% and 110% respectively.

What are people and businesses looking to lease?

Views per lease listing for showrooms this month showed the largest year-on-year increase (70%) and second highest month-on-month change (12%) among all categories. Year-on-year growth was recorded across all states and territories.

Demand to lease warehouses was also strong, up 68% on last year. This was driven predominantly by Australian Capital Territory (81%) and Western Australia (84%), despite an decrease in the number of listings.

What are the features that people and businesses are looking for?

From this month’s analysis of most-used keywords, we can see that ‘childcare’ is in hot demand. For categories where the keyword was already frequently used such as offices and land/development, its popularity and rank has continued to increase.

In addition to consistently being the most searched keyword in the medical/consulting category, the keyword ‘childcare’ has made its first appearance in the showrooms/bulky goods category.

What have been the most popular commercial listings?

See the top 10 most viewed commercial listings nationally and in each state below.

The most popular commercial listing in May was the new Cobblebank Village Shopping Centre, which opened in May.