This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
HOUSING recovery improved over August, with national home values increasing by 0.8% over the month after two months of slowing capital gains.
According to CoreLogic’s Home Value Index (HVI), there was a sixth monthly rise over August (0.8%) up from 0.7% in July, a change in the two-month trend of slowing growth.
The national is now up 4.9% since February’s low, adding around $34,301 to the median dwelling value.
Every capital, excluding Hobart where there was a minor 0.1% decline, recorded an increase in dwelling value over August.
With Brisbane leading increases at 1.5%, followed by increases of 1.1% in both Sydney and Adelaide.
“Sydney has led the recovery trend to-date with a gain of 8.8% since values found a floor in January this year. Brisbane has also posted a strong recovery with values up 6.2% since bottoming out in February,” said Tim Lawless, research director at CoreLogic.
Meanwhile, Perth recorded a 0.9% increase over August, Darwin was up 0.8%, Melbourne up 0.5% and Canberra up 0.3%, reflecting a 1.0% increase across the combined capitals.
“At the other end of the scale, some other capital cities are better described as flat, with Hobart home values unchanged since stabilising in April, while values across the ACT have risen only mildly, up 1.0% since a trough in April,” added Lawless.
“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.”
Over the year, Sydney was up 1.2%, Adelaide up 2.2% and Perth up 4.5%. With Melbourne down 2.3%, Brisbane down 3.0%, Hobart down 10.0%, Darwin down 1.3% and Canberra down 5.9%.
House values have displayed a sharper recovery trend than unit values across the capital cities, with house values up 6.3% since February and unit values up 4.9%.
This follows a greater drop in house values through the downturn, with house values were down 10.7% and unit values down 6.5%.
“Most cities are showing a larger rise in house values compared with units, however Sydney stands out with the most significant difference through the recovery cycle to-date, possibly due to the more substantial decline in house values which fell by -15.0% through the recent downturn,” said Lawless.
Conditions were mixed across Australia’s regions, with the combined regions seeing a 0.1% increase over August.
Regional NSW was down 0.2%, Victoria down 0.6%, while regional Queensland was up 0.8%, SA up 0.9%, WA up 0.1% and Tasmania flat at 0.0%.
“With internal migration trends normalising across regional Australia, and less demand side pressures from net overseas migration than in capital cities, regional markets generally aren’t seeing the same level of recovery,” said Lawless.
“Housing values across the combined regional areas of Australia are up 1.6% since a trough in February, compared with a larger 6.0% rise in values across the combined capitals.”
