This month CoreLogic released its latest report on the health of the Australian housing market, recording a rise of 1.5% in the national home value index in September, taking Australian housing values 17.6% higher over the first nine months of the year, and 20.3% higher over the past 12 months. The annual growth rate is now tracking at the fastest pace since the year ending June 1989.
Every capital city reported positive growth in housing values across the month of September – with Canberra at 2% – the largest, and Perth at 0.3%, the softest. Across regional Australia, Queensland led September’s capital gains at 1.7%.
Tim Lawless, CoreLogic’s Research Director says that “although growth conditions remain positive, it seems that the housing market has moved past its peak rate of growth – which was March 2021, when national dwelling values increased by 2.8%, easing back now to an average of 1.5%.”
He attributes the slowing growth to housing affordability issues in an environment of stagnant wage growth, along with an easing of government incentives to enter the market.
“With housing values rising substantially faster than household incomes, raising a deposit has become more challenging for most cohorts of the market, especially first home buyers. Sydney is a prime example where the median house value is now just over $1.3 million. In order to raise a 20% deposit, the typical Sydney house buyer would need around $262,300.”
“Existing homeowners looking to upgrade, downsize or move home may be less impacted as they have had the benefit of equity that has accrued as housing values surged.”
Despite declining affordability, house values are still generally rising faster than unit values; a trend that has been evident throughout most of the COVID period to-date, especially across the capital cities. Hobart and Darwin are the only capital cities where this trend has not occurred, with unit values rising 5.4 percentage points and 4.8 percentage points more than house values respectively over the past 12 months.
If you are wondering how the Sunshine Coast is faring amongst all this growth, the below list is the top growth suburbs in the region during the past 12 months (released in August 2021):
- Sunrise Beach $1.188 million (36.6% change)
- Coolum Beach $846,000 (21.7%)
- Wurtulla $760,000 (21.2%)
- Noosaville $1.350 million (21.1%)
- Mount Coolum $747,500 (20.6%)
- Woombye $637,000 (20.3%)
- Twin Waters $970,000 (19.5%)
- Tewantin $702,000 (18.1%)
- Maleny $750,000 (19.3%)
- Buderim $795,000 (16.9%)
Source: CoreLogic