Nine out of every 10 Australians who sold their homes in the first part of the year made a profit, resulting in profits totalling $30.6 billion.
The biggest winners were owner-occupiers of houses, particularly in regional Australia, while investors tended to make slimmer gains – and nearly a fifth of apartment-owners made a loss on their properties.
The CoreLogic Pain & Gain report analysed 98,000 sales across the country in the March Quarter, a period which saw rapidly rising property values.
Head of Australian research Eliza Owen says the total profit made by vendors in the first quarter of 2021 was actually down from $32.2 billion in the December 2020 Quarter, but that was likely a reflection of seasonally lower sales activity.
“March 2021 also marked the fourth consecutive quarter where regional Australian resales sustained a higher rate of profitability than in the capital city markets,” she says.
“90.6% of regional resales saw a profit through the quarter, compared with 90% of capital city sales.
That gap in the rate of profit seen between capital cities and regions has narrowed, however, with capital-city growth rising to closer to regional rates through April and May.