For sale listings register big city rise in February

Advertisement

By Leith van Onselen

From SQM Research comes stock on market figures for the month of February, which lifted sharply over the month, although they remain significantly lower year-on-year:

ScreenHunter_17833 Mar. 07 16.43

As shown above, property listings nationally rose by 3.9% in February but are down a hefty by 5.1% year-on-year.

Listings lifted across all jurisdictions except Darwin in February, whereas listings fell in five out of eight jurisdictions over the year. Importantly, the big cities of Sydney (+18.0%) and Melbourne (+16.4%) recorded large monthly increases.

Advertisement

The annual fall in listings has been most pronounced in Hobart (-13.4% YoY) and Melbourne (-9.7% YoY), whereas they are materially higher in Perth (+8.3% YoY) and Brisbane (+3.8%).

Commenting on the results, Managing Director of SQM Research, Louis Christopher, noted:

“…the big rise in listings in the big cities should help to alleviate tight supply in many of the nation’s property markets, with Hobart’s and Melbourne’s property listings still well down from a year earlier”.

“Despite the big jump in listings in Sydney and Melbourne in February, property asking prices are still rising in the nation’s two biggest cities, which highlights just how strong these property markets are. This momentum is likely to continue this year with interest rates hovering at very low levels, and today’s decision by the Reserve Bank to hold rates steady is likely to fuel ongoing price gains”…

Advertisement
About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.