We’ve just published the new Winter edition of The Price Predictor Index and it shows that Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia are the key places where real estate consumers should be focusing their attention.

While this Winter 2022 survey of sales activity across Australia shows a marked decline in the Sydney market, we have identified Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide as the capital cities where sales activity remains strong and prices are tipped to keep rising.

The regional areas outside those three cities are also over-achievers.

Perth has 21 suburbs on our National Top 100 list of Supercharged Suburbs, more than any other city. The next most-represented jurisdiction is Regional Queensland, followed by Brisbane and Adelaide.

Regional Western Australia and Regional South Australia also have a disproportionately high number of inclusions, relative to their size overall.

These rankings reflect the overall strength of these markets, based on the level of sales activity.

Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide have all maintained high numbers of suburbs with rising momentum, as have the regional areas of each of those states.

Some have the highest levels we have recorded in the seven years of our quarterly surveys.

Perth, for example, has maintained sales activity at well above normal levels for the past six quarters. Brisbane also has had six quarters running of elevated sales activity, while Adelaide has been well above historical averages for the past five quarters.

There are strong markets right across Queensland, led by regional centres in central and northern areas of the state.

In Regional South Australia, both lifestyle locations and industrial areas (including the Iron Triangle towns) are booming, while both lifestyle and mining centres have strong markets in WA.

All are market jurisdictions where the latest price data indicates values are continuing to rise, in contrast to the two biggest cities.

Now, turning our attention to what’s happening in the Sydney market …

Economists, commentators and writers often make the mistake of believing that Sydney leads the nation on real estate trends.

If Sydney is up, they declare Australia to be booming. If Sydney is falling, the nation is in decline.

The reality is usually different. Sydney is often the exception to the national rule. We’ve seen that frequently over the years.

Right now, the Sydney market is doing something that few other market jurisdictions in Australia are doing: there has been a significant decline in sales activity in the nation’s biggest city.

The sales volumes data shows that the Sydney boom peaked in the middle of 2021. In the second half of last year, there was a notable decrease in the number of suburbs with rising momentum. In the first quarter of 2022, that became a significant slump.

Subsequently, there has been evidence that this is now translating into price decline.

And it’s important to note that the Sydney slump occurred well before interest rates started to rise.

But this Winter 2022 survey of suburbs and towns across Australia has not found any other instances of major markets dropping dramatically. Most still have strong levels of sales activity and continue to produce conditions in which prices will rise.

Up to this point, price performance has continued to be prolific in most locations across the nation.

Genuine nationwide property booms are rare in Australia – and it’s equally unusual to see every single suburb in a city or region producing annual growth in their house prices.

But that’s what we’ve seen in multiple market jurisdictions across Australia in the 12 months to April 2022.

In Brisbane and in Hobart, every suburb has recorded annual growth in their median house prices.

In Regional Victoria and Regional Tasmania, every town and suburb has had price increases over 12 months.

In many other jurisdictions, there have been only a handful of exceptions, so that over 99% (but not quite 100%) of locations have recorded annual growth.

They include Regional Queensland, Perth, Adelaide, Regional WA, Canberra and Sydney.

In Darwin and the Northern Territory, every location except one has had rising prices.

Both Melbourne and Regional NSW have had rising prices in 98% of locations.

In many jurisdictions, the level of price growth has been extraordinary. Suburbs and towns with rises above 20% are the norm and many have topped 30%.

So, overall, the state of markets around Australia continues to be strong and the conditions exist in most market jurisdictions for prices to keep rising.

To get the in-depth view, get the new edition of the Price Predictor Index.