The smaller capital cities and some of the key regional areas are leading the strong price growth that continues to sweep across Australia.
The February report on prices from CoreLogic shows that eight of the nation’s 15 major market jurisdictions (eight capitals and seven regional markets) recorded house price growth of 1.8% or more during January.
A monthly growth rate of 1.8%, annualised, suggests annual growth above 20%.
The out-performers in January were led by Brisbane, which rose 2.5%, followed closely by Adelaide and Regional South Australia, which both increased 2.3%.
Regional Queensland grew 2.2% and Regional Tasmania 2.0%, while Canberra, Regional NSW and Regional Northern Territory all rose 1.8% or 1.9% during January.
The under-achievers, in relative terms, were Sydney (0.8%), Melbourne (0.5%) and Perth (0.7%), which all grew by less than 1% in January.
In annual terms, Brisbane now leads, with its median house price up 32% in the 12 months to the end of January 2022. Regional NSW is up 32%, while Regional Tasmania and Sydney have both risen by a little under 30%. Adelaide and Canberra have both risen by about 28%, with Hobart and Regional Queensland both up 26%.
The national average figures show that the regions overall continue to out-perform the capital cities. With houses, the regions grew 1.8% in January compared with 1.1% in the capitals, the latest quarter was 6.5% for the regions and 3.1% for the capitals, while in annual terms it was 26.6% for the regions and 24.2% for the state capital cities.
In the unit markets, the regions led the capitals 1.2% to 0.1% for January, 4.0% to 1.0% for the latest quarter, and 23.7% to 12.7% for the past 12 months.
The figures show that those who declared the end of the property boom late last year were, once again, very premature.
It’s also worth noting that media generally has declared the end of the national property boom four times in the past 12 months – and they’ve been proven wrong each time.
The first time was early in 2021 when CoreLogic published its monthly data, which showed that the average monthly rise was lower than the previous month.
Journalists rushed to declare the end of the boom – and yet, here we are 12 months later, with massive price rises still occurring in markets right across the nation.
