Since the onset of the pandemic, CoreLogic has seen a prominent increase in interest for detached houses across the Australian property market.
The price premium of houses over units has continued to emerge since March last year, as stage two restrictions rolled out across the nation.
In the past 16 months, CoreLogic found capital city house values rose 14.2 per cent. This is more than double the 5.6 per cent rise in capital city unit values over the same period.
As of June 2021, the median capital city house value was $797,287. In comparison, the median unit value was $611,117.
This marks a 30.5 per cent gap between median house and unit prices, which is the highest on record.
The results for June 2021 marks the biggest gap between median house and unit values across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Canberra in 15 years.
The Perth price gap between houses and units has just come off record highs, from 39.1 per cent over May, to 38.9 per cent over June.
Meanwhile, the price gap between median house and unit values has been trending down across Hobart and Darwin.
Sydney
Houses and units in Sydney have a record high price gap of 54.2 per cent.
The difference in median house and unit values has skyrocketed since September 2020, as the house market saw a recovery trend following eased social distancing restrictions across the city.
Unit values continued to decline through to January 2021, as low levels of investor participation and subdued rental conditions established a precedent for less interest in unit stock.
As the current Sydney lockdown reinforces the lasting impacts of COVID-19 on large cities and monetary policy remains accommodative, CoreLogic expects to see Sydney-siders who can afford it to be willing to fork out a premium for detached housing in the months ahead.
Melbourne
Similarly, Melbourne has seen a record high in the difference between house and unit medians at 52.4 per cent, as of June.
Melbourne has had the weakest rental market performance since the onset of COVID-19, and as a large portion of rental stock are units, this has dampened demand across the segment.
CoreLogic Australia Head of Research, Eliza Owen suggested this would also explain the comparative weakness in the Sydney unit market, where rental demand was similarly affected by a lack of overseas migration.
But unlike Sydney, Melbourne has seen similar rates of disparity through the 2017 and 2018 calendar years, when the house price premium on units averaged 46.3 per cent. A prolonged period of high unit supply and development of high density stock, kept unit values relatively low through this period.
Brisbane
Brisbane has seen a distinct outperformance of house values relative to units.
Since the onset of COVID-19, house values across Brisbane have increased 15.5 per cent, compared to just 5.0 per cent across units.
But the gap between house and unit values has risen fairly consistently since mid-2015, and five-year annualised growth rates sit at 4.3 per cent for houses, compared with a 0.1 per cent decline in units.
Unit construction across Brisbane rose substantially through to late 2016, creating an overhang of stock when investor activity began to decline off the back of changes to macro prudential policy in late 2017.
In 2018, it was estimated 20 per cent of apartments in Brisbane were vacant due to oversupply.
Adelaide
Adelaide has seen an acceleration in the price gap between houses and units since February 2021, as the COVID-recovery in dwelling values was led by houses.
Since the onset of COVID-19, house values across Adelaide have increased 16.2 per cent, compared with a 7.3 per cent rise in units.
Despite the recent uplift in the price gap, Adelaide has long seen a premium on houses relative to units, with an average differential in the median of 34.7 per cent for the past 15 years.
This may be due to the higher rates of owner occupation in the city contributing to more demand for detached housing, and elevated levels of unit construction from June 2017.
Perth
Perth currently has the second-lowest house premium of the capital city markets at 38.9 per cent (behind Hobart at 32.3 per cent).
This follows a 15-year average house premium of 25.6 per cent, which is the lowest of the capital cities.
Part of this is due to the relatively high stock of low density housing across Perth, while units tend to be centred in more desirable or inner city locations, which would see relatively high median unit values.
However, like other large capital cities, the difference in house and unit values has surged since the onset of COVID-19.
The differential in prices for houses and units came off a record high through June, as monthly growth in house values softened to 0.1 per cent across the city, compared with a 0.6 per cent lift in unit stock.
Hobart
Hobart is unlike most capital cities, as the gap between house and unit values has been trending down, following a recent high of 35.9 per cent in February 2021.
Units have also seen a comparable increase in value (18.7 per cent) to houses (21.1 per cent) since the onset of COVID-19.
Hobart currently has the lowest gap between the median house and unit value at 32.3 per cent, though this is above the 15-year average of 27.6 per cent.
It is likely that a lack of available stock, and extreme affordability constraints, have pushed more demand into the unit segment in recent months.
This has seen a quarterly increase in Hobart unit values of 10.3 per cent, compared with 6.7 per cent across the house segment.
Darwin
Darwin has also seen a decline in the gap between median house and unit values, following a recent high in September 2020.
House and unit values across the region have seen a similar uplift in value since the onset of COVID-19, at 24.3 per cent and 22.5 per cent respectively.
Unlike Hobart, Darwin has sustained a relatively large house price premium, with the median sitting 68.5 per cent higher than units.
Canberra
Canberra currently has the biggest house and unit price gap of the capital city markets, at 74.8 per cent.
Since the onset of the pandemic, the Canberra Home Value Index increased 22.7 per cent across houses, compared with 8.7 per cent across units.
However, the gap in Canberra house and unit values does not stem from recent demand trends alone; Canberra has seen a very large volume of unit developments over the past decade relative to houses.
For the 10 years to March 2021, there was an average 4,593 units under construction each quarter compared to just 841 houses.
This equates to roughly 5.5 units supplied to the market for each house construction, relative to the national average of 2.0 units for each house over the decade. This strong uplift in unit supply has left unit price growth relatively subdued.
