RP Data-Rismark this morning released its daily home values index for 31 May, enabling us to calculate house price performance across Australia’s major capitals over the month.
According to RP Data-Rismark, Australian capital city home values fell by -1.41% over the month, led by Melbourne, where prices crashed -2.66%, which is likely to represent a record monthly fall (see below chart). All capitals except Adelaide (+1.23%) registered declines in values over the month.
The decline in national capital city home values in May follows April’s -0.73% fall, and takes the year-to-date loss to -2.25% (see below chart).
Ominously, losses in Melbourne appear to be gathering steam, down just over -5% since the beginning of the year and by -8.45% over the past 12 months (see below chart). Brisbane, too, remains quite weak, down -1.87% since the start of the year and by -6.48% over the past 12 months; although the pace of decline appears to be moderating.
While May’s overall result is unequivocally poor, it should be borne in mind that home prices typically fall by around -0.2% in May, according to RP Data-Rismark’s May 2011 home price release. This suggests that national capital city home values would have declined by slightly less (-1.2%) had the series been seasonally adjusted.
