Its a stodgy monthly finish to 2015 for property prices according to CoreLogic/RPData, mainly because of Sydney, but the final quarter registered an average 1.4% fall across the capital cities. Sydney finished the year up 11.5% – yes, Mary Sue thats a bubble because wages ain’t anywhere near that level of growth.
But no falls are forecast for the capital, unlike Melbourne. More from head of research Tim Lawless:
I think there’s still that underlying factor of strong demand driven by low interest rates, and not really the supply issues that Melbourne has seen, I think we’ll continue to see Sydney at least remain fairly neutral in its growth.
Melbourne on the other hand, we’re seeing quite a difference between the apartment market and the house market – all that new supply flowing into the unit sector has really slowed that market down but detached housing, particularly around the middle-ring suburbs, is still performing quite strongly.
Here’s the roundup from Michael Janda at ABC:
Melbourne home prices substantially closed the gap to the city’s bigger northern counterpart, with annual growth of 11.2 per cent despite a 1.9 per cent third quarter slide.
Elsewhere, Brisbane had one of the strongest third quarters to post a 4.1 per cent annual home price increase, equal with Canberra’s annual rise.
Every other capital posted annual declines in 2015, highlighting the regional nature of housing markets.
The mining-driven capitals of Perth (-3.7 per cent) and Darwin (-3.6 per cent) had the biggest home price falls, and also saw large declines in rents as construction on many major resources projects wraps up and the workforce moves away.
Headwinds abound of course, with increased capital requirements for banks, lettuce leaf like restrictions on investor loan growth, but the supply side as the construction boom rolls on is hitting against the underlying fundemantals, as asking rent falls to historic rental yield lows.
As the Australian “investment” property market has always been about capital gains, this steam train needs another shot of coal soon before being derailed.
The consensus view is for “mild” price falls in the year ahead and then whoosh!