Sydney and Melbourne dwelling values slightly climbed in June— up by 0.1% and 0.2% respectively, according to new data
CoreLogic reported that the rise was the first monthly increase in Sydney housing values since the market peak in July 2017. Melbourne dwelling values, on the other hand, had not risen since the market moved through a peak in November 2017.
The June results showed an early sign that lower mortgage rates and improved sentiment are already having a flow-on effect for housing-market conditions in Sydney and Melbourne.
National housing-market conditions, meanwhile, continued to improve through June, with a 0.2% fall in national dwelling values— the smallest month-over-month decline in the national series since March 2018.
“The subtle rate of decline was heavily influenced by trends across Sydney and Melbourne, where the pace of falling home values has been consistently reducing over the year to date. Importantly, the improving conditions through to mid-May were largely ‘organic,’ pre-dating the positive boost in sentiment following the federal election and interest rate cuts in early June,” CoreLogic Head of Research Tim Lawless said.
The only other regions to record a rise in housing values over the month were Hobart (+0.2%), as well as the regional areas of South Australia (+0.1%) and Northern Territory (+0.2%).
Every capital city housing market has recorded a drop in value over the quarter, reflecting the broad geographic scope of the housing market downturn. Darwin (-3.6%) and Perth (-2.1%) recorded the largest falls over the past three months. The weaker trend lingered in Western Australia’s capital since mid-2014. Adelaide posted the smallest decline amongst the capitals over the quarter, with values down by 0.4%.
Across the regional markets, values dropped by 0.4% over the month to be down by 3.1% for the financial year. Dwelling values recorded a rise over the June quarter in Regional South Australia (+0.6%) and Regional Tasmania (+1.3%). Although the areas have registered modest gains over the quarter, the regional areas in the country are tracking downwards.
