The key message for Australians interested in what’s REALLY going on in property markets across the nation is this:
Don’t believe everything you read about how Australian property prices are faring at the moment.
In fact, I would go so far as to say: don’t believe ANYTHING you read about property prices across Australia.
You may have seen a lot of commentary about how prices are already on the way down across Australia – but, for the most part, that is simply NOT the case.
The latest CoreLogic housing data suggests that prices in the Sydney market have started to come off the boil.
And, given that data from other sources provides a similar impression, we think it’s a reasonable conclusion that the Sydney market is no longer pumping as strongly as it was in 2021.
Unfortunately, most of the media has extrapolated the Sydney situation to the whole of the nation. Media reports are telling us that price growth has slowed and indeed that prices are falling for the entire housing market.
They have turned Sydney’s situation into a national downturn.
But that is not remotely true.
In most other parts of Australia, we are still seeing not only a continuation of price growth but very strong price growth.
The latest figures show there is still very strong price growth in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra in particular among the capital cities – and all the major state and territory regional markets.
The Melbourne market is a little subdued, according to the CoreLogic figures – but other credible sources, including SQM Research, have different figures which show that Melbourne values are in fact still RISING.
Beyond the two biggest cities, which get most of the media attention to the exclusion of the rest of Australia, the CoreLogic figures show a continuation of boom-level growth in other capital cities.
Adelaide house prices increased by almost 2% during April and 27% in the past year.
Brisbane is up 1.7% in April and 32% for the year, while regional Queensland continues to do well with values up 1.8% in April and 26% for the year.
The April figures from CoreLogic indicate that the monthly rate of price growth has actually increased in a number of our capital cities, including in Perth, Canberra and Darwin.
The exodus to affordable lifestyle trend has not diminished, with most regional markets continuing to record big price growth.
Values in Regional South Australia and Regional Tasmania increased by 2.2% in April.
Based on these figures, most major market jurisdictions have house prices which are continuing to rise – and indeed rise at boom levels.
Unfortunately, you might not read too much about that in mainstream media, because of their tendency to focus all their attention on the available negatives in the market – which means the ongoing obsession with Sydney – while ignoring the positives seen in the rest of the country.
Here’s what I think people should do, to avoid being misled.
Get a copy of the actual price report from CoreLogic and read what the figures in the report actually say – rather than reading what the media says the reports says.
The report is free and easily accessible.
If you look at the report itself and ignore the media, you will get a totally different impression about the state of property markets across Australia.
