The housing market had been showing early signs of improvement, according to CoreLogic.

Sydney and Melbourne predominately experienced improving conditions.

Over the three months to July, national dwelling values continued to decline, falling -0.5%. However, the monthly rate of decline has been slowing, with values throughout July unchanged.

“The improvement in market conditions was more evident across the combined capital cities, while the combined regional markets have seen the magnitude of declines trend higher throughout 2019,” said Cameron Kusher, senior research analyst at CoreLogic.

The slowing rate of price decline in Sydney and Melbourne throughout 2019, with increases over the past two months, influenced the improved market conditions.

Melbourne is the only city that saw values increase over the three months, while several cities recorded a slower rate of decline.

Areas with the hardest price drop from their peaks avoided the fall over the past three months.

House prices in Sydney fell -14.7% from their peak to July, but over the past three months, seven regions in the capital city have avoided the fall.

In Melbourne, four regions have avoided the decline, including the East and Inner South.

Outside of Sydney and Melbourne regions, Hobart and Adelaide’s North recorded an increase in values over the past three months.

However, several combined regional markets failed to show the same early signs of market recovery.

“The reason for the declining regional values, and with little to no real signs of an improvement, is more to do with the fact that most of the larger regional markets continue to record value falls,” Kusher said.

The more populated regional markets continued to experience price declines over the past three months, with areas like Townsville, Cairns, Richmond-Tweed, Toowoomba and Launceston, and North East being the exceptions.

“Over the coming months it will be interesting to see if the improvement continues and whether it spreads from Sydney and Melbourne to other capital cities and regional markets,” Kusher said.