A report from Daily Mail Australia. "Rents for inner Sydney apartments have been slashed by up to $400 a week as desperate landlords grapple with a shrinking pool of tenants and rising vacancies. Housing experts say the current rental market is a 'tenant's dream' following the coronavirus crisis as renters now have power to negotiate their own terms for agreements like price reductions or keeping pets."

"Last month, almost one in seven rental units in the CBD and surrounding suburbs were empty, with rents an average of 18.4 per cent lower than March, SQM Research data revealed. Prices plummeted at a similar rate in Glebe, while unit rents in Kirribilli and Lavender Bay dropped an average of nearly 15 per cent over the past three months."

"Renters' agent Marcelle Wever, of Sydney Rental Search, said some properties were available at prices last around the mid-2000s. 'Landlords are desperate,' she said. 'There are more properties available near the city than I have ever seen.'"

"Some of the most heavily discounted apartments include luxurious units in the heart of the city's CBD. A three-bedroom unit on the 12th floor of a building at 591 George St listed for $1,200 per week in January, was recently relisted for $800. Another three-bedroom unit at 361 Kent St was recently listed for $900 per week, a $260 drop from the rent in 2017."

From Domain News. "Brisbane’s inner-city rental market has finally begun the painful crawl out of its most devastating slump in decades after the mass exit of students, expats and hospitality workers sparked skyrocketing vacancy rates and soaring discounts. According to the latest rental discounting data compiled by Domain, some of the city’s inner hot spots were forced to slash median weekly rent prices by more than 30 per cent during the COVID-19 pandemic peak in April, with a whopping 636 rental listings still available as of May in Brisbane City alone."

"The CBD’s rental discounting rate was still painfully high at 32.9 per cent last month, with Milton not far behind at 32.7 per cent. Overall vacancy rates across Ray White Brisbane CBD principal Dean Yesberg's inner-city offices’ areas were still sitting at a whopping 84 per cent, reflecting what he said was one of the toughest markets ever for landlords and one of the best for tenants."

"'The reality is once the vacancy goes over 5 per cent, it becomes a tenant’s market … so they have got very good opportunities right now. And there’s been a massive correction in prices,' Mr Yesberg said."

The New Daily. "High-rise apartments in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane will suffer the largest price falls as a result of the coronavirus, analysts have warned. Each of these cities was already suffering from an oversupply of CBD apartments before the crisis. And a sharp decline in international students and foreign investors will only add to their pain."

"'It’s going to be a real bloodbath over the next 12 to 24 months,' Suburbanite principal Anna Porter told The New Daily. 'What we’re seeing is buyers who already bought apartments six, 12, or 18 months ago and pre-committed to contracts now can’t get the finance through because the lending environment has changed.'"

"The big four banks have changed how they assess home loan applications in response to the crisis. Lenders are conducting more rigorous employment checks and lowering their maximum loan-to-value ratios to minimise the risk of non-performing loans. This means some buyers who agreed to purchase a home off-the-plan will struggle to honour their contracts – leaving developers out in the cold."

"'We’re going to see banks potentially repossessing development sites that are near completion or just reached completion,' Ms Porter said. The scheduled withdrawal of JobKeeper and lowering of JobSeeker in September will make matters worse, she added."

"Charter Keck Cramer director of research Angie Zigomanis said investors eager to resell because of weakened demand for short-term accommodation would also weigh on prices. Since 2011, more than half of off-the-plan properties purchased in Melbourne’s CBD and surrounding suburbs, including Docklands and Carlton, later sold at purchase price or at a loss, he said. However, he said lower prices are good news for owner-occupiers looking to downsize."

"'There’s a perception that apartment living and denser types of living puts you more at risk [of contracting coronavirus], so we’re seeing more people move away from those areas,' Mr Zigomanis told The New Daily. 'There is going to be a percentage of sellers who will be price takers, because they are in a position where they need to sell, so you’ll start seeing 10 to 20 per cent reductions from the off-the-plan price.'"

The Australian Financial Review. "Like many landlords, Cleo Glyde always believed property investing was a reliable way to make money – it's stable, simple and it comes with hefty tax breaks. Now she's not so sure. 'It's a lot harder to make property investing work in this environment,' she said. 'Rents are dropping and it's a renters' market so there's a high level of insecurity around keeping my tenants at the moment. I'm too worried about spooking them with rental and maintenance issues, that I'd end up with an empty property, which would really hurt my cash flow situation. So if times were normal, I would like to sell my two investment properties because they're probably never going to have massive capital growth anyway, given the current market.'"

"For Daniel Pain, who was recently furloughed from his job at an oil and gas company, the property game is over. After investing for 12 years, he decided to call it quits and sell up. 'The company has paused just about every project in Australia so I'm on JobKeeper at the moment. I'm not sure when normal work returns and I don't want to have the additional worry of having a large debt hanging over my head,' he said."

"'By selling my rental property in Chipping Norton, I'd be able to reduce my mortgage to a more manageable and less stressful level,' he said. 'The rents were not covering the costs and capital gains have been slow coming. There's so much uncertainty at the moment so it's probably not worth the risk holding on to my rental property.'"

"The triple whammy of falling rents, rising vacancies and low capital growth is driving many property investors to bail out. The number of landlords who are liquidating their rental assets rose to 12 per cent from 8 per cent in April, said Martin North, director of Digital Finance Analytics. An estimated 90,830 investors dropped out of the market during the past 12 months, reducing the total to 2.34 million, Mr North said."

"At the market's peak in 2017 and 2018, the number of landlords surged by 8.9 per cent to 2.39 million. 'Investors are selling up because financial stress is rising, with two out three landlords not seeing a positive return on their investment,' Mr North said. 'I think the investor party is well and truly over for now.'"

"Tax expert Adrian Raftery estimates that a typical Sydney investor is currently losing $6,543 in rent each year. 'Tax rebates for negative gearing may help but the average tax rate is about 25 per cent, so for every $4 forgone in rent, the tax benefit is just $1. The net loss is a real hit – especially for retirees who rely on that rental income to survive,' he said."

"CoreLogic analyst Eliza Owen said the withdrawal of investors from housing markets may put downward pressure on prices for investment-grade stock like apartments. Investors represent around 26 per cent of the market, so a drop in activity will affect prices, SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher said."

"'Investors are a significant component of the market so when investor activity falls, a significant drop in property prices follows,' he said. 'If investors were to leave the market en masse, this will put further downward pressure on already falling prices because you're taking out a large chunk of demand from the market.'"

"Mr Christopher said this was already evident by falling auction clearance rates. Over the past two weeks, homes cleared at auction dropped to around 40 per cent of properties listed in Sydney and Melbourne after the initial bounce in mid-May, signalling falls in prices, Mr Christopher said."