View of Melbourne’s skyline.
Overall home prices across all capital cities in Australia increased by 10.8 percent in January 2017 on an annual basis, reported The West Australian, citing data from analytics firm CoreLogic.
At the same time, Melbourne and Sydney continue to record the highest annual price growths, with values rising sharply by 12.5 percent and 15.6 percent respectively. Similarly, residential prices in Brisbane and Adelaide saw modest gains of 4.8 percent and five percent in the year to 29 January.
On the other hand, Perth was the only capital city where residential prices declined. Beside a 3.4 percent year-on-year drop in residential values, it was the only market where total property listings increased in 2016. The 4.8 percent increase in listings may be an indication that sellers are struggling to dispose their homes.
In contrast, listings continue to slide in other domestic markets, with new ones plunging by 20.2 percent over the past 12 months. In Darwin, it plummeted by nearly half (44.8 percent), while Sydney witnessed a smaller decline of 2.7 percent.
As for the total number of property listings across the country, it dropped by 8.5 percent. Specifically, it was down 5.1 percent in Brisbane, 7.2 percent in Darwin, 10.7 percent in Adelaide, 11 percent in Sydney and 14.6 percent in Melbourne. Canberra posted a fall of 19.1 percent, while it plunged by 40.5 percent in Hobart.
Meanwhile, rising home prices in most cities and improving auction clearance rates suggest that Australian real estate remains in demand, leading to a drop in listings.
In fact, over 75 percent of the properties nationwide that were placed under the hammer in the previous week found willing buyers, surpassing the 60 percent figure during the corresponding period in 2016.
Sydney posted an auction clearance rate of 79.7 percent last week versus the 44.9 percent average last year, while Melbourne recorded 86.2 percent, up from 69.9 percent on average. Even Perth’s figure increased significantly from 44 percent previously to 55.6 percent.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
