Property indicators signal cooling market

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A bunch of leading indicators have been released suggesting the Australia’s red hot property market may soon run out of steam.

First, the latest REA Insights report shows that weekly for sale searches have fallen sharply from their March peak across every market:

Weekly for sale searches

For sale searches have fallen sharply from their March peak.

Email enquiry to agents has also fallen sharply from recent peaks:

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Email enquiry to agents

Email enquiry to agents has also fallen from the recent peak.

Non-investors have shown the biggest decline in email enquiry:

Email enquiry to agents

Non-investors have shown the biggest decline in agent email enquiry.

Average views per listing have also declined across the board:

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Average view per listing

Average views per listing have gone past peak.

Commenting on the results, REA’s Cameron Kusher noted:

We don’t expect the market to come to a grinding halt, prices are expected to keep rising but we expect that the second half of this year will not see the market quite as strong as it has been over the first half.

Meanwhile, Domain reported that new listings have swelled across most markets:

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As noted by Domain senior research analyst Nicola Powell:

“What the new listings will help to do is ease the rapid rate of price gains. It will help alleviate the tough conditions that buyers have been transacting under… We’ve seen such phenomenal and rare conditions of the first three months of this year on a number of fronts…

“It gets to that point where sellers are encouraged to market.”

Overall, this data suggests that price growth will remain strong, albeit significantly lower than March’s record price gains.

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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.