Home prices across Australia fell by half a percent in April —down by 7.2% over the past year and by 7.9% since peaking in September 2017. The rate of decline, though, has been easing since moving through a monthly low point in December, when national dwelling values dropped by 1.1%, according to recent CoreLogic data.
“The improvement in the rate of decline is attributable to an easing in the market downturn across Sydney and Melbourne where values were previously falling much faster. In December last year, Sydney dwelling values were down -1.8%, with the pace of month-on-month, falls progressively moderating back to -0.7% in April. Similarly, Melbourne values were down -1.5% in December, with the rate of decline improving to -0.6% in April,” said CoreLogic Head of Research Tim Lawless.
Data also showed a rise in mortgage-related valuations activity, an improvement in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) household finance data for February. In addition, auction clearance rates are holding around the mid-50% range across the major auction markets. These property market insights suggest a subtle improvement in housing market conditions.
“While none of these indicators could be described as strong, the current trend in the data implies that housing market conditions may have moved through the worst of the downturn,” Lawless said.
Dwelling values decreased across every capital city except for Canberra in April. Regional areas of Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia avoided a fall. “The broad-based nature of lower housing values highlights that while the rate of decline has eased, the geographic scope of lower dwelling values remains broad,” CoreLogic said.
Notably, Hobart values slid by 0.9% over the month, marking a weakening across what has been one of the strongest capital city markets for value gains. Canberra was the only capital city where dwelling values were up over the month.
Across the capital cities, Sydney (-10.9%) and Melbourne (-10.0%) both recorded double-digit annual declines, followed by Perth (-8.3%) and Darwin (-7.1%). Hobart (+3.8%) and Canberra (+2.5%) posted the largest gains, while Adelaide is the only other capital city to remain in the black over the past twelve months (+0.3%).
