June 7 REA Insights Weekly Commercial Search Report, 2021

The number of searches to buy commercial property have increased over the past week, while lease searches continued to decline.

‘For sale’ searches on realcommercial.com.au were 2% higher last week, driven by increases in every state and territory except Western Australia. Comparing year-on-year, ‘for sale’ searches are now 32.2% higher.

Compared to last year’s levels, searches to buy commercial property are at least 20% higher in every state and territory except Tasmania, which is up 11.7%. The Northern Territory has seen the strongest year-on-year growth at 59.2%, followed by South Australia (34.3%) and Queensland (32.8%).

‘For lease’ searches on realcommercial.com.au have declined by 1.3% over the past week, though have recorded mixed movement across the states. Compared to 12 months ago, however, lease searches are 4.6% higher.

Driving the decline in ‘for lease’ searches over the past week were Victoria and New South Wales, where volumes fell by 4.8% and 1.1% respectively. Impacting leasing demand in Victoria, the most recent COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdown has prevented physical inspections.

Victoria has also seen the strongest 12-month decline in ‘for lease’ searches, down 7.2%. In contrast, most other states and territories have seen leasing volumes above last year’s levels.

The latest GDP figures, showing Australia’s economy is now above pre-COVID levels, is a positive sign for the commercial property sector. Rising business investment and confidence should help support further growth in demand for commercial property over the remainder of 2021.