National Property Market Sees Some Improvement

Australian dwelling values fell half a percent last month as the pace of home value decline continued to ease after moving through a recent low point in December last year when national dwelling values were falling at a much faster rate.

The latest figures take national housing values 7.2% lower over the past twelve months to be down 7.9% since peaking in September 2017.

Image Unavailable

The slowing of the rate of decline is attributable to an easing in the market downturn across Sydney and Melbourne where an improving trend in the rate of decline has been evident over the past three months. In December last year, Sydney dwelling values were down 1.8%, with the pace of falls progressively moderating back to a month on month decline of 0.7% in April. Similarly, Melbourne values were down 1.5% in December, with the rate of decline slowing to 0.6% in April.

Image Unavailable

Other property market insights are supporting a subtle improvement in the housing market’s conditions. These include a rise in mortgage related valuation activity, as indicated by CoreLogic data, an improvement in ABS household finance data for February, and the fact that auction clearance rates are holding around the mid-fifty percent range across the major auction markets.

Image Unavailable

While none of these indicators could be described as strong, the current market trend in the data implies that housing market conditions may have moved through the worst of the downturn.

Image Unavailable

Although the national rate of decline has improved, the geographical scope of falling values has broadened.

In April, dwelling values fell across every capital city apart from Canberra, while regional areas of Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia also avoided a fall. The broad-based nature of weak housing conditions highlights that tighter credit conditions are having a dampening effect across all markets.

Image Unavailable