The latest CoreLogic January index results have confirmed that all capital cities recorded a rise in home values, with Hobart in the lead, recording a 5.8 percent rise in dwelling values over the three months to the end of January – with Sydney and Melbourne also posting strong increases over the rolling quarter.
Highlights over the three months to January 2016:
- Best performing capital city: Hobart +5.8 percent
- Weakest performing capital city: Canberra +0.1 percent
- Highest rental yields: Hobart and Canberra houses with gross rental yield of 5 percent and Hobart units at 5.8 percent.
- Lowest rental yields: Melbourne houses with gross rental yield of 2.7 percent and Darwin units at 3.4 percent
- Most expensive city: Sydney with a median dwelling price of $850,000
- Most affordable city: Hobart with a median dwelling price of $366,000
The results showed capital city dwelling values rose by 0.7 percent over the first month of the year, which was lower than the 1.4 increase recorded in December.
CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless said: “The positive result was broad-based with every capital city (excluding Darwin) recording a rise in dwelling values over the month.
“The largest month-on-month gains were recorded in Hobart (+1.4 percent), Sydney (+1 percent) and Melbourne (+0.8 percent).”
The annual growth rate across the combined capital cities was 10.7 percent over the twelve months ending January 2017, compared with 10.8 percent over the previous rolling twelve month period.
As expected, Sydney stood out as recording the highest annual capital gains with dwelling values up 16 percent over the past twelve months, the highest annual rate of growth since the twelve month period ending September 2015.
“While the growth trend in smaller cities such as Hobart can show higher levels of volatility, clearly the Hobart housing market is now well into its growth cycle.
“Strong housing market conditions are being driven by the positive affordability of housing, as well as improving economic conditions and stronger migration trends,” Lawless said.
For Perth and Darwin, the rise in dwelling values over the rolling quarter may hint at a bottoming of the downturn, evident since 2014 according to Lawless.
“Since dwelling values peaked in these markets they have reduced by a cumulative 7.7 percent in Perth and 7.5 percent in Darwin through to January 2017.
“Perth dwelling values were 2.1 percent higher over the past three months, and Darwin values were up 1.8 percent.”
“Buyers still have a great deal of leverage in these markets, with listing numbers remaining high, long selling times and high rates of discounting,” he said.
