Darwin leads as city prices consolidate

By Terry Ryder, 25th October 2012

Darwin remains the outstanding performer on price growth, as capital city prices generally consolidated in the September Quarter.

Australian Property Monitors’ House Price Report shows that Darwin, Canberra and Melbourne recorded rises in the quarter, Brisbane remained unchanged and Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart delivered median price decreases. The average situation across the eight capital cities was no change.

Year on year, Darwin’s median house price is 3% higher than a year ago, while Sydney and Perth have also shown small increases. (Click here for our location report on Darwin).

In the apartment markets, the average situation across the eight state and territory capitals was a decrease of 1.1% in the September Quarter, despite an 8% jump in Darwin’s median unit price. All other cities recorded no change or decreases in median prices.

Year on year, Darwin is 7.4% up on a year ago and Sydney and Perth are marginally higher. The other cities have median unit prices slightly lower than a year ago, except for Melbourne which is still down 6%.

Australian Property Monitors senior economist Dr Andrew Wilson said the steadiness overall in house prices provided encouragement that the increase in buyer activity evident in most cities this year was consolidating.

“Overall, capital city housing markets continue to edge their way through a tentative recovery following the downward correction of 2011,” Wilson said.

“Although falling interest rates have improved housing affordability and buyer confidence, market growth has been driven largely by other local factors, including changes to buyer incentives, population growth and value-buying momentum in some prestige markets.

“Given a reasonable economic performance over the remainder of 2012, housing markets will continue to generally find their feet, albeit at varying levels of activity.”

Terry Ryder

Terry is the owner and creator of hotspotting.com.au, which provides information to property investors on how to identify emerging markets before they’re common knowledge.

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