Australian home prices continue to rise in April, despite turbulent month
Australian home prices continued to rise in April, reaching a new record high.
Dwelling prices, which encompass both houses and units, rose by 0.3 per cent with the national median price now at $825,349.
The rise in home prices, for the third consecutive month, came despite uncertain conditions both nationally and globally.
“There has been a third consecutive month of growth, but there has been a bit of a slowdown in the pace of growth,” Eliza Owen, Head of Residential Research at Coality, said.
Owen said the slowdown in growth had been most noticeable in capital cities.
“There is more resilience in regional Australia than what we’re seeing in the capital cities in April,” she explained.
Growth was slowest in Sydney and Melbourne, which both saw a rise of 0.2 per cent in home values, with Darwin recording the highest capital city growth, with a 1.1 per cent gain in April.
Regional Australia still growing
You might like
The combined capitals saw a growth in value of 0.2 per cent, while combined regionals were ahead 0.6 per cent for the month in the Coality Home Value Index for April.
“It’s a trend that’s been occurring since October last year, where we’ve seen monthly growth in the regions outperform the capital cities,” Owen said.
And while some cities are now at a record high, such as Adelaide and Perth, all other capital cities have come down from their record prices.
Sydney values remain -1.1 per cent below their September 2024 high, and Melbourne values are down -5.4 per cent from the record peak in 2022. The median house price for Sydney is $1.474 million, and Melbourne’s is $934,500.
The ACT home values are down -6.4 per cent from their record high. The median house price is $977,737.
Newcastle was among the stand out regional performers. Photo: Tim J Keegan
Regional centres in NSW continued to grow, including Newcastle, where home values were up 0.3 per cent in April, with a median house price of $931,920.
The Illawarra also grew in April, with home prices rising by 0.7 per cent, with a median house price of $1.051 million.
In regional Victoria, Ballarat house prices grew 0.6 per cent with the median house price now sitting at $576,462.
Million dollar cities
Stay informed, daily
While growth in regional home prices had outperformed capital cities, property prices in cities were still much higher.
“Despite the extraordinary growth in regional Australia over the course of the year there is still a premium on capital city markets compared to the regions,” Owen said.
“The median house value across the combined capital cities is now over $1 million where for regional Australia it is about $690,000,” she added.
The month of April was marked by a number of global and domestic events that created a slowdown in buying and selling, rather than significant price cuts.
“April was a wild month,” Owen said.
Fewer people selling
“We had [Trump’s] Liberation Day and the effect that had on the global economic outlook, the announcement and lead up to the Federal election with its focus on housing policies and in Australia a ‘super break’ with the Easter and Anzac Day public holidays,” Owen said.
“Watching the market at this time we can see what happens to Australia’s housing market when there is so much uncertainty and people just aren’t around,” she added.
“Ultimately, what we found is that transaction activity dipped with a very distinct drop off in listing volumes,” she said.
Over the week ending 20th April, just 644 auctions were held across the combined capitals, the lowest easter auction week since 2019.
New listing numbers also fell to their lowest levels for this time of year since 2019, with just 19,650 for sale listings seen across the combined capitals over the four weeks to April 27th.
The latest property price growth figures come just one day after Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) underlying inflation figures fell under three per cent for the first time in three years, opening the way for a further rate cut.
This article first appeared on View.com.au. Read the original here.
