Sunday Telegraph, Sydney
by Aidan Devine
Inner-Sydney enclave Surry Hills has topped a list of national suburbs expected to have the strongest growth in home values, with the same research warning investors to be “cautious” of Perth.
The West Australian capital has been the country’s biggest magnet for property investors over the past year, but the Price Predictor Index from research group Hotspotting said there were signs it was running out of puff.
Hotspotting examined trends in all the major markets and found more than half the 50 areas with the sharpest rise in sales – a precursor to price growth – were in NSW. Surry Hills was the suburb with the sharpest pick-up in transactions, with experts revealing it followed a trend of rising unit demand.
Buyers were also coming back to inner locations as companies asked workers to be in the office more. Among the other 25 NSW markets on the list of areas where sales volumes had risen for four quarters or more were inner-Sydney suburbs Annandale, Darling Point, Woolloomooloo and Paddington.
“History shows that there is a correlation between sales volumes and price movements: the number of sales changes first and then prices react – with a time lag,” Hotspotting director Terry Ryder said. “(It) means investors can buy ahead of price growth by finding locations where sales volumes are rising, but prices have not yet moved.”
A fifth of the other suburbs with a notable bump in sales volumes over the past four quarters or more were in Victoria, with most of the remaining suburbs in South Australia and Queensland. Suburbs in WA failed to appear on the list.
This was despite the state accounting for most of the ascendant suburbs in last year’s index – a period just before Perth home values surged by 21 per cent annually, the fastest rise among the capitals. Mr Ryder said investors should be careful when considering Perth, despite the city’s impressive price growth in recent months.
