Australia’s property market has witnessed an unprecedented growth this year despite uncertainties due to the ongoing pandemic.
CoreLogic’s Best of the Best Report listed suburbs that reported the best results for each market indicator.
|
Market Indicator |
Houses |
Units |
|
Highest Median Value |
Bellevue Hill (NSW) $8.74m |
Point Piper (NSW) $3.22m |
|
Most Affordable Median Value |
Kambalda East (WA) $90,155 |
Woree (Qld) $158,846 |
|
Fastest Annual Growth in Values |
St. Andrews Beach (Vic) 58.6% |
Yamba (NSW) 56.6% |
|
Highest Rental Yields |
Kambalda West (WA) 14.7% |
Woree (Qld) 10.7% |
|
Biggest Annual Increase in Rents |
Bicheno (Tas) 40.9% |
Narooma (NSW) 33.7% |
CoreLogic head of research Eliza Owen said Australia’s property market was able to report strong gains over the course of the pandemic, with the overall real estate achieving a record-high value of $9.4tn over the year to November.
“Strong housing market performance over the year was driven by multiple factors, including low interest rates, fiscal and institutional support for households, high household savings, and relatively low levels of advertised stock,” Ms Owen said.
“Rates of housing turnover had also been relatively low for some years before these factors boosted housing demand, which may also explain the elevated volume of sales in the past 12 months, which in November was 32.6% above the decade annual average.”
Overall, house prices increased by 24.6% over the year to November while unit prices went up by 14.2%.
In terms of location, regional dwelling values posted a stronger growth of 25.2% than the 21.3% in capital cities.
Ms Owen said the popularity of regional housing markets continues to be a common theme.
“The quiet coastal suburb of Yamba, in the Coffs Harbour-Grafton region of NSW, achieved the highest annual growth in units of suburbs across Australia,” she said.
Other regional suburbs that posted stellar annual gains in dwelling prices are Geelong (unit prices up 41.7%), Fraser Island in Wide Bay (unit prices up 48.2%), and Campbell Town in Tasmania (house prices up 50.5%).
“This may in part be attributable to how COVID-19 continued to shape demand trends, with coastal or leafy settings being more desirable as some workers were empowered to work remotely,” Ms Owen said.
Ms Owen said it is important to also recognise the softening of the housing market boom over the second half of the year, which was due to several forces, including the increase in listings and rising concerns on affordability.
“The constraints of slightly tighter credit conditions, the erosion of housing affordability and a higher level of listings being added to the market are expected to see softer growth rates across property values in 2022,” she said.
“These forces are an accumulation of headwinds for property market performance. Softer growth rates are likely to coincide with fewer purchases, where sales and listings activity eventually move with momentum in price.”
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Photo by @centelm on Unsplash.
