Australia’s housing market is firmly in recovery mode as prices continue to rise, with cooling inflation and the likely peak of interest rates set to entice more buyers and sellers in the coming months.
CoreLogic’s national Home Value Index saw an increase of 0.8 per cent in August, meaning property prices have risen for six consecutive months, and have increased by 4.9 per cent — or $34,301 — since February.
August’s growth rate is slightly higher than the 0.7 per cent increase in July, but remains below the 1.1 per cent rise in June and 1.2 per cent jump in May.
Rival property data firm PropTrack, owned by real estate advertiser REA Group, saw a modest 0.3 per cent increase to house prices in August.
CoreLogic’s August figures saw Brisbane record the highest increase in home values of 1.5 per cent, followed by Sydney and Adelaide both seeing home values rise by 1.1 per cent.
“Sydney has led the recovery trend to date, with a gain of 8.8 per cent since values found a floor in January this year,” said CoreLogic’s research director, Tim Lawless.
“Brisbane has also posted a strong recovery with values up 6.2 per cent since bottoming out in February.”
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The ACT saw a modest rise of 0.3 per cent in August, while Hobart was the only capital city to see a fall in values in August — although Mr Lawless said the Tasmanian capital’s result was best described as “flat”.
“Hobart home values [are] unchanged since stabilising in April, while values across the ACT have risen only mildly, up 1.0 per cent since a trough in April,” he said.
“These are also the only two capital cities where advertised supply is tracking higher than a year ago, suggesting a rebalancing between buyers and sellers is a key factor contributing to the stability of values in these regions.”
Comparatively, PropTrack reported that Adelaide led the monthly home value gains with 0.6 per cent, followed by Sydney and Perth.
(ABC)
