According to The Office Market Report by the Property Council of Australia, a huge discrepancy exits between Australia state vacancy rates. “What we are seeing is a major divergence of performance between the states, between CBD and non-CBD markets and in the supply outlook for each city”.
In Brisbane, the completion of large CBD buildings has pushed supply past demand creating historical highs in vacancy rates. 16.9% of Brisbane’s CBD office space became vacant by July 2016. This is the highest vacancy rate seen in Brisbane over the last 3 decades.
In contrast, overall Australian figures show a decrease in vacancy rates six months to July 2016. The Property council of Australia reported that despite negative demand, “Australia’s office market vacancy decreased from 10.5 percent to 10.4 percent”.
As the historical line chart above demonstrates however, non CBD Office vacancy rates had the biggest decrease down to 9%.
The chart also puts vacancy rates into perspective. Australia wide vacancy rates are up considerably from a historical low of around 3% in January 2008 and down considerably from a historical high of over 20% in January 1993.