Profit Making Sales Hit High

The number of properties sold for more than buyers originally paid for them has hit a high.

The latest Pain and Gain report shows that 94.3% of sellers achieved a profit in the March 2024 quarter, which was the highest rate of profit-making sales in 14 years.

Although more sellers are achieving a profit the report shows the median rate of profit dropped slightly during the quarter by 1.1% to $265,000.

In all, more than 85,000 resales achieved $28.5 billion in gross profits, down from the $30.6 billion achieved in the December quarter.

The lift in profit-making sales is in line with home values rising by 1.9% in the three months to May.

House sales (97.1%) were more profitable than unit sales (89%) during the quarter with the gap between house and unit profits having roughly tripled since March 2020.

Brisbane and Adelaide (98.4%) had the highest level of profit-making resales, followed by the ACT (95.6%), Hobart (94.1%), Perth (93.6%), Sydney (91.6%), Melbourne (90.8%) and Darwin (71.3%).

The best-performing regional markets for profits were the Sutherland Shire (98.2%) and Blue Mountains (98%) in NSW, the Yarra Ranges (97.4%) and Greater Dandenong (97%) in Victoria and the Scenic Rim (98.4%) and Somerset (99%) in Queensland.