NEW data has put Australia’s current property market correction and gloomy media headlines in stark perspective.
Nationally, property prices have fallen 3.53 per cent from their peak in March, while across the combined capital cities they are now down by 4.38 per cent.
The sharpest declines have been seen in Sydney, with prices slumping 6.28 per cent from their peak, followed by Melbourne, with a 4.75 per cent fall from its peak.
But new analysis by PropTrack of price growth movement since the start of the Covid pandemic in March 2020, when most markets began to surge, shows markets are still well ahead.
“Rising interest rates since May have constrained buyers and this has caused property prices to decline in most markets,” PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said.
“But in most areas, the price falls we’ve so far seen remain well below the enormous gains recorded since the start of the pandemic. For example, across the capital cities, prices are still up 24 per cent and in regional areas, they remain a whopping 47 per cent higher.”
Take the suburb of Austral in Sydney’s southwest, where the current median house price of $1.01 million is a staggering 142 NSW, Greta in the Hunter Valley has a current median house price of $888,000, which is a whopping 130% higher than when Covid kicked off.
“NSW has seen the most high-growth suburbs,” Ms Flaherty said. “Topping the list for price growth
in the state are suburbs in outer Sydney, as well as lifestyle-rich regional areas.”
In every state and territory, recent price corrections pale in comparison to the significant value growth recorded in the wake of Covid in top performing suburbs.
For example, in Victoria, the median house price in the Mornington Peninsula suburb of Blairgowrie is 84 per cent higher, sitting at $1.695 million.
Meanwhile in Queensland, Upper Caboolture, north of Brisbane, has a median house price of $754,000, which is 84 per cent higher than in March 2020.
Apartment growth has been just as strong in many suburbs, with the West Australian suburb of Cable Beach in Broome seeing a 126 per cent surge in its median unit price of $362,000. In Narooma on the NSW South Coast, the median unit price has shot up 115 per cent to reach $618,000, while in Sunshine Beach in Queensland it’s up 104 per cent
