erida Conisbee
Ray White Group
Chief Economist
Cheaper properties saw the strongest price growth over the past 12 months with houses in the lowest percentile increasing by 12.2 per cent. In comparison, our most expensive homes have seen a price slowdown, perhaps now reflecting the prolonged impact of higher interest rates. Long term, Australia’s most expensive homes have generally outperformed the rest of the market.
Perth and Regional WA continue their strong run. Perth typically moves more closely with mineral prices than interest rates however price growth is continuing despite relatively weak demand conditions for both iron ore and lithium. Perth house prices increased by one per cent over the month and over 23 per cent for the year. Unit growth was also strong, up over 20 per cent over the year. It is likely continued acceleration in construction costs is a driver, as is population growth.
Adelaide and Brisbane, while not as strong as Perth, continue to see growth well above the Australian average. Brisbane is now getting very close to a $1 million median, although is still some way off the next most expensive market, Melbourne. Unit prices in Adelaide and Brisbane are continuing to see stronger increases than house prices.
More surprisingly, fairly decent conditions were seen in our bigger cities of Sydney and Melbourne, despite other indicators showing rising weakness in demand. Both cities have seen lower numbers of active bidders at auction and a pick up in the number of properties for sale. Both cities saw an increase in pricing of 0.2 per cent or more in September. Melbourne continues to be the slowest market but is still recording year on year growth.
The Economist, a weekly magazine, recently undertook an analysis of where it was possible for a single person to affordably rent alone. The analysis was referred to as the Carrie Bradshaw Index, named after the fictional character in “Sex in the City” where Carrie lives alone in New York, presumably … Read more
Nerida Conisbee Ray White Group Chief Economist With inflation now edging towards three per cent and markets are now pricing in potentially four rate cuts next year, it is possible that we will see a rate cut before the end of the year. With Australian house prices remaining highly divergent between … Read more