FANCY a month’s free rent with your 12 month lease?

How about an iPad, a free gym membership, a gift voucher or your moving costs covered by your landlord?

You may want to consider a move to the Sunshine State.

While prospective Sydney tenants battle it out in the Harbour City’s notoriously competitive housing market — often paying over and above listed rental prices to secure leases on even rundown properties — those in Brisbane are firmly ensconced in the driver’s seat.

Desperate landlords in the Queensland capital are increasingly resorting to desperate measures to secure tenants, as the impacts of the city’s long-predicted apartment oversupply is finally being realised.

Rental vacancy rates in the five kilometre, inner city radius have soared to a record high of 4.4 per cent, as thousands of brand new dwellings have flooded the market in recent years.

The surge has not only seen rental prices plummet across the city, but many apartments, particularly older ones, sitting empty for long periods of time.

The conditions have, according to the Real Estate Institute of Queensland, provided a boon for renters not seen for more than a decade.

With competition to secure tenants rife, most prospective renters are in ideal positions to negotiate lower rents, home improvements or added extras, REIQ chief executive Antonia Mercorella said.

“Landlords know they need to be competitive, because renters have a lot more choice and they are negotiating better deals,” she said.

“Prudent landlords are meeting the market. They are offering rent free periods and ingenious, amazing opportunities to tenants.

“Because there is so much brand new stock with bells and whistles, like gyms, pools, barbecue spaces, roof top gardens, older and established apartments need to compete.

“So, we’re seeing things like landlords paying for removal costs, offering gift vouchers.

“But probably more than anything, we’re hearing a lot more rent free periods being offered, which is always pretty attractive for people from a renters perspective.”

Ms Mercorella said just last month, the owner of an older apartment on the city’s south side had offered rent free for the entire month of June to secure a new tenant.

Theresa Fitzgerald, principal of Theresa Fitzgerald Property Management, in the exclusive inner-northern riverside suburb of New Farm, said it was not uncommon to see apartments of a decade or so old sitting vacant for six weeks.

The surrounding suburbs of Fortitude Valley and Newstead have undergone something of a residential construction boom in the past five years, which has greatly increased choice for inner city apartment dwellers.

“A one bedroom apartment that was getting $310 around three months ago, we are now asking around $260 to $270 for,” Ms Fitzgerald said.

“Your typical two bedroom, two bathroom apartment that is maybe seven years or more (old) is competing with a brand new product, so those are the ones that are sitting vacant for around six weeks.

“Realistically, rather than offering incentives, the owners need to reduce the rent.”

That, however, proves a difficult task to convince landlords of, she said.

“Some of them just cannot accept it. If the average rent they were getting was $520 a week and they get an offer of $490, some just can't accept it,” Ms Fitzgerald said.

“They were getting good money a year ago but rather than accepting less, it sits empty for weeks.

“The biggest piece of advice I have is to convince a landlord to accept an application close to the money they are asking and not to hang out for more.”

Whether the rental prices continue to fall remains to be seen.

Brisbane still has a number of large scale apartment buildings to come on to the market in the near future, however, Ms Mercorella said some developers had put the brakes on projects due to the looming oversupply and fear of not selling their stock.

“We have seen the market self-correcting already, in the first quarter of 2015, 300,000 new apartments came onto the market in Brisbane, whereas in the first quarter of 2017, only about 260 apartments have come onto the market,” she said.

“We know a bunch of proposed developments have been put on hold, there are some developments that are still coming up and will hit the market, our view is over time the supply will be absorbed.”

Just how long that longer term is remains to be seen.

Some property pundits have tipped Brisbane’s apartment market will continue to fall die to oversupply until 2020.

In the first quarter of this year, apartment sale prices dropped by 3.8 per cent in the city, the biggest fall in 17 years.

Correspondingly, rental vacancy rates rose.

According to REIQ figures, vacancy rates in Brisbane’s five kilometre inner city radius jumped to 4.4 per cent in March, up from 3.6 per cent in the December quarter.

Predictions of an apartment oversupply have long been made about Brisbane, with Reserve Bank of Australia assistant governor Michele Bullock telling a Sydney business breakfast in March that the central bank was keeping a close the on the market, due to fears of a collapse.

Some economic experts have warned the fall in apartment prices in Brisbane could continue until 2020, while the demand catches up with the supply.

That, however, remains good news for the city; s renters, who, unlike their counterparts in Sydney and to a lesser extent Melbourne, wield much more power.

“Landlords are a having to offer better deals, and in a weak market it’s important that they are conscious of the fact they need to ensure they maintain a good relationship with their tenant,” Ms Mercorella said.