MELBOURNE CBD APARTMENT MARKET
The pandemic led to a net loss of more than 6,000 people from Melbourne CBD and not surprisingly this resulted in a dramatic decline in rental levels and prices . Through the pandemic , apartment rents dropped from $ 507.50 per week to $ 360 per week while the median sale price declined from $ 585,000 to $ 420,000 . With both prices and rents dropping by almost 30 per cent , it ’ s certainly been a challenging time for the city .
While the general advice when investing is to buy at the bottom of the market and sell at the top , it ’ s advice that only investors with a high risk tolerance tend to take . As Melbourne was grappling with prolonged lockdowns , a shutdown CBD retail sector and a loss of foreign students , it was one of the few markets that was locked out of the pandemic-driven price boom .
The market for apartments in Melbourne has now turned a corner . Foreign students are coming back , office workers are returning and the retail precinct is slowly but surely coming back to life . This means that more people will return to live in the CBD and this will push up rents and values .
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