Company News

The news has been awash with stories of falling house prices, less sales, lower clearance rates and more stringent lending policies in recent months. But despite these ongoing market and regulatory challenges, the Australian broking industry is in a remarkably healthy state.

This week’s Property Pulse takes a look at city-wide median dwelling values and compares those to each of the SA4 sub-regions within the capital cities to get a better understanding of typical housing costs from region to region.

The decline is slowing down in the NT, but values are still on a downward spiral.

According to the latest CoreLogic Home Value Index results for October 2018, national dwelling values have fallen by -3.5% over the past year and are -3.5% lower than their peak. Although this is a pretty moderate fall it is interesting to take a look at what this means and where values sit historically.  

This week, there are fewer auctions scheduled to take place across the combined capital cities, with 1,438 currently being tracked by CoreLogic, which is half the volume of auctions recorded last week when the combined capital cities saw 2,928 homes taken to auction.

Preliminary results show half of the homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities were successful over the 5th busiest auction week of the year

Almost half of Australia’s SA4 sub-regions have recorded a rise in dwelling values over the past twelve months.

The last time auction conditions were quite this sombre was in 2012, over what was the last significant market downturn, highlighting the correlation between property values and clearance rates as a timely indicator on market conditions and sentiment. 

The combined capital cities are expected to see an uplift in auction activity this week, with 2,782 homes scheduled to go under the hammer; this is an increase of 30 per cent when compared to last week’s final results which saw 2,139 properties taken to auction.

The CoreLogic report identifies those suburbs and towns nationwide that are classed as ‘over-performers’, based on their change in median value over the past 12 months but also their medium and longer term results.

Traditionally, auction activity ramps up around late October through to December each year and it is not uncommon to have weeks where volumes are in excess of 3,000 during that time so it will be interesting to see what volumes are like this year given the softening market. 

Although freshly advertised stock is low, total advertised listing numbers have been trending higher as the rate of absorption slows. In fact, if the current trend continues, we will see the number of properties available for sale exceed the recent 2012 peak in total advertised stock levels.  

The busiest suburb for auctions this week is Victoria’s Bentleigh East with 23 scheduled auctions, followed by Glen Waverley and Reservoir (Vic) where each will see 19 auctions take place. While the NSW suburb of Baulkham Hills made 3rd place this week, with a total of 15 homes to be auctioned.