Real estate agents are resorting to discounting to try to secure tenants as coronavirus hits the apartment rental market.
A glut of new apartment listings, restrictions on viewings and fewer people looking to move is putting extra pressure on landlords to reduce their price expectations.
If you are a renter, property analysts say it is a good time to find a bargain, especially in city apartments.
"There's a silver lining in a lot of these markets," Real Estate Institute of South Australia general manager Andrew Shields said.
"Renters now have more of an opportunity to negotiate, absolutely."
In one Adelaide high-rise, 10 apartments have been listed in the past few days alone.
Many asking prices are now lower than what the previous occupants paid.
One agent has dropped the price on a two-bedroom apartment by $90 a week and still has no takers.
"That's supply and demand. It really comes down to economics," Mr Shields said.
"If you have a big supply coming on to the market, like 10 apartments in one building, will you have enough demand to fill that?"
He said Adelaide was very much a university town and had been impacted by the travel lockdown.
Interest dropping for short-term rentals
Property manager John Carey, from Harris Real Estate, said the volume of CBD enquiries had dropped by about 20 per cent.
"In the city, apartments have struggled. The volume on the market has kept rents down," he said.
"There are also many students who haven't come back from overseas."
Cities across Australia are feeling the effect of fewer foreign students and workers looking for accommodation.
Hundreds of short-term lets are also being converted to long-term rentals because the owners can no longer rely on the tourism market.
"There is a lot of choice — a lot of it has come from the Airbnb market," Toop&Toop real estate agency chief executive Suzannah Toop said.
"A lot of properties have tipped now, particularly in the CBD — they've tipped into the long-term market — so there's a lot of choice for tenants."
Renters able to negotiate prices and leases
Sydney resident Gabrielle Morriss has just moved into a harbour-view apartment in Potts Point.
She said she was surprised by the level of discounting.
"In the two to four weeks I was looking, a lot of the places were being reduced," she said.
"It was common to see $50 to $100 being knocked off."
She said seeing the listing prices fall put her in a good position to negotiate an 18-month lease.
"They were pretty favourable conditions. It was a good time to be looking to get a new lease," she said.
"They [the agents] responded straight away to the lower offer.
"Even after I'd secured this place, the amount of messages I kept receiving from other real estate agents about potential properties was phenomenal."
SQM Research's weekly data on asking rents has already recorded a 5 per cent fall in rents in Sydney and a 2 per cent fall in Melbourne.
"We're going to see a significant rise in rental vacancies and a fall in rents," SQM Research founder Louis Christopher said.
"[It] will be great for tenants, but won't be so good for landlords."
Analysts say at this stage premium properties and established houses have not been affected as much.
"There's been a 10 to 15 per cent drop in lettings [in Adelaide], but overall things are holding," Mr Carey said.
"We thought it would be a bigger fall."
