Fri. Nov 22nd, 2024
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House prices continue to rise, but there are further signs that a recent rebound may be losing steam as spring selling season approaches.

The latest CoreLogic Home Value Index for Australia rose 0.7 per cent in July, the fifth straight month of gains.

However, the rise last month is a further deceleration from the 1.2 per cent increase seen in May and 1.1 per cent rise in June.

Rival data firm PropTrack, owned by real estate advertiser REA Group, recorded a much more modest 0.2 per cent rise in prices.

CoreLogic’s research director Tim Lawless said, after leading the upswing, the monthly pace of growth in Sydney had halved from a recent high of 1.8 per cent in May to 0.9 per cent in July.

A man in a suit on a street.
Tim Lawless is the research director at property analytics firm CoreLogic.(ABC News: Geoff Kemp)

“Sydney has also seen a significant rise in the number of fresh listings added to the market, 9.9 per cent higher than the same time last year and 18.0 per cent above the previous five year average,” he noted in the report.

“An increased flow of new listings provides more choice and may be working to reduce some of the urgency felt among prospective buyers.”

The same trend is not being seen across all cities, with the monthly rate of price increases accelerating in Brisbane and Adelaide (both 1.4 per cent), where new listings remain below the five-year average.

Perth’s market remained strong (+1 per cent), joining Adelaide and regional South Australia as the only markets currently at record high prices.

The other capitals and rest-of-state markets remain below their COVID boom peaks, with most having recovered less than half of last year’s falls.

Having generally boomed most during COVID, as more people sought sea and tree changes, regional markets have mostly missed out on the recent rebound, rising an average of just 0.2 per cent last month, 1.2 per cent over the past three months and still down 5.6 per cent over the past year.

CoreLogic reported that the Gold Coast (+4 per cent), south-east Tasmania (+3.1 per cent) and Newcastle/Lake Macquarie (+3 per cent) had the largest regional price increases over the past quarter.

On the flip side, regional Victoria dominated the losses, with Bendigo (-3.7 per cent), Shepparton (-2.3 per cent) and Warrnambool/south-west region (-2.3 per cent) all dipping sharply.

PropTrack reported the strongest monthly price gains in Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, with its data showing all three cities at record highs, with Hobart (-6.6 per cent), Canberra (-5.9 per cent) and Melbourne (-4.9 per cent) furthest away from the previous peak.

Slowdown in premium markets may foreshadow wider weakness

The slowdown in the overall growth rate of property prices has been driven by the top end of the market, which has fallen from leading the broader gains to posting the slowest increase (0.7 per cent) in July.

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