New figures from Victoria’s peak real estate body show house prices in Melbourne have climbed to record highs.
According to the figures from the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, the June quarter saw the median house price in Victoria push past $700,000 for the first time.
“The metro Melbourne median house price of $706,000 for the three months to 30 June was up from $671,000 in the March quarter,” REIV chief executive officer Enzo Raimondo said.
“This represents a quarter-on-quarter increase of more than 5%; the last time we had a quarterly increase this great was in late 2014.”
Raimondo said the level of growth seen in Melbourne had been fuelled by factors including record auction numbers, low interest rates and low stock levels.
Dave Brewster, managing director of Melbourne based Buy Property Direct, said the figures didn’t surprise him.
“The Melbourne market recently has just been selling and prices are just really pushing up,” Brewster said.
“For example we recently settled on a development in Croydon and the values for it have probably risen by 60% in 10 months, people at the moment are just paying crazy prices.”
Brewster predicts the Reserve Bank will announce another interest rate drop later this year which will help Melbourne with even more price growth, but he still said there is areas in the city that offer value for money.
“There are still a few areas out there, mainly in the east and south east that are affordable,” he said.
“The first is Carrum Downs, it’s had pretty flat growth the last few years, but everything around it is raging and historically when that happens the flat area will get pulled up as well.
“At the moment it’s an area where it’s affordable to get in hold onto, you can get a double story, three or four bed town house for below $400,000.
“The other area is Pakenham, it’s a bit further out, but you’re looking at 75% population growth in the next 25 years, something like 18,000 new jobs and good investment in infrastructure as well.”
Brewster also said there are some areas of the city he would stay away from.
“Looking at the off the plan sales in the city, something like 40% of those are to foreign buyers, so that might be a little over-stimulated, especially in the inner-eastern suburbs.
“I’d also be staying away from the west until the Westgate Bridge situation is sorted, it was built in 1978 and has five lanes for 200,000 cars a day and one accident just paralyses the whole area, so until accessibility is fixed there’s not going to be great growth there.”
While not quite at the same level as their Melbourne counterparts, houses in regional Victoria also experienced price growth over the June quarter; with the REIV figures showing median prices increased 1.5% to $346,000.
