The pace of home price falls has slowed significantly, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, although an expert cautions that it does not signal the end of the declines.
Son PropTrack Ev Fiyat Endeksi, released on Saturday, shows national prices fell by only 0.19% in September – the smallest decline since the falls began in April.
PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan said while there were widespread home price falls in September, the pace of declines moderated “significantly”.
The pace of home price falls slowed significantly in September, although that does not signal the end of the declines. Picture: Getty
Further price falls are expected as interest rates continue to rise, with most economists tipping another mega hike from the Reserve Bank of Australia next week.
“The moderation in price falls does not herald the end of declines; interest rates have continued to increase and expectations of a hike in early October will push prices lower throughout spring,” Mr Ryan said.
He noted public holidays disrupted selling activity in September.
While New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT all have a public holiday on Monday, activity is expected to pick up over the remainder of the peak spring selling season.
“The easing in price declines comes as sellers hit the market for the typically busy spring season,” Mr Ryan said.
“While we expect home prices to continue to fall across the country in 2022 and into 2023, we will see a pick-up in market activity for spring in October as public holidays have delayed some selling activity so far.”
After the 0.19% decline in September, national house prices are now 3.4% below their March peak.
Interest rate hikes key to outlook for home prices
Mr Ryan said rate rises continue to be the crucial driver of home price falls, with the RBA lifting the cash rate by 225 basis points since May to 2.35%.
“The RBA has raised rates at the fastest pace since 1994, with a further 50 basis point increase expected in early October. This is significantly constraining borrowing capacity ve artan borçlanma maliyetleri ülke genelinde."
Mr Ryan said it will take time for higher interest rates to fully affect prices, meaning they are likely to continue to fall into next year.
“Interest rate effects will overwhelm the positive demand effects from stronger wages growth and immigration that we expect over the coming year.
“But buyers and sellers over the spring selling season will be waiting for the RBA to reveal the pace of interest rate rises over the rest of the year as it will be key for the extent of price falls this year".
RBA governor Philip Lowe has signalled the central bank may move to smaller rate rises after its rapid run of supersized hikes, with the board to decide between a 25 or 50 basis point move next week.
Economists at ANZ, Westpac and National Australia Bank are among the experts who expect the RBA to announce an unprecedented fifth consecutive double hike on Tuesday, lifting the cash rate to 2.85%.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia economists, like AMP, still favour a smaller hike of 25 basis points to 2.60% but add it’s “a line-ball call”.
Mr Ryan said despite the recent falls, home prices remain significantly above their pre-pandemic levels with regional areas up almost 47% since March 2020 and capital city prices 25% higher.
Pace of falls eases in Sydney and Melbourne
Sydney and Melbourne prices fell only slightly in September, bucking the recent trend of Australia’s two biggest housing markets consistently recording the largest declines.
“Price falls were noticeably more mild in Sydney and Melbourne in September, after several months of significant price falls,” Mr Ryan said.
“This will be some relief for those markets but we do not believe this signals the end of price falls.”
Home price declines eased in Melbourne and Sydney, bucking the trend of the two cities leading the price falls across Australia. Picture: Getty
Sydney home prices fell 0.18% in September and have now fallen 3.7% over the past year.
Mr Ryan noted Melbourne prices are now below their level a year ago for the first time since 2019 after falling 0.29% in September. Melbourne prices are now 2.1% lower than in September 2021.
Sydney prices have fallen 5.6% and Melbourne prices by 4.9% from their February 2022 peaks.
Hobart was the only capital city where prices did not fall in September, recording a slight rise of 0.05%. Hobart prices, however, are 1.8% below their May peak.
Darwin had the biggest monthly decline among the capital city markets with prices down 0.37%, while Perth and Brisbane both recorded 0.29% falls in September. Canberra prices eased by 0.09%.
Prices in Adelaide fell for the second month in a row, dropping 0.16% in September.
“Adelaide is now the strongest performing capital city market over the past year (up 16.3%),” Mr Ryan said.
“Along with Brisbane (up 11.7%), they remain far and away the strongest capital city markets, having benefited from many of the same lifestyle and affordability trends that have boosted the regions since the onset of the pandemic.”
Mr Ryan noted the combined capital city markets have now retraced all of their gains in late 2021 and early 2022 to be back to the same level a year ago, after a 0.22% fall in September.
The two markets defying the price falls
Regional areas in South Australia and Tasmania continued to defy the national falls, hitting new price peaks in September.
Prices in regional South Australia gained 0.55% in September, taking its annual growth to 18.6% – the strongest increase among all the major markets.
Regional South Australia, including homes in the Barossa Valley wine-growing region, and regional areas of Tasmania are defying the national price falls. Picture: realestate.com.au/buy
Prices in regional Tasmania rose 0.08% in September, to be up 12.8% on a year earlier.
Prices in regional markets across Australia fell 0.11% in September.
In contrast to the annual decline in the combined capital city markets, home prices in regional areas are still 9% higher than their level a year ago.
“These parts of the country have benefited from relative affordability and preference shifts towards lifestyle locations and larger homes following the pandemic,” Mr Ryan said.
“These factors have buffered the regions, as well as the more affordable capitals of Brisbane and Adelaide, from the largest price falls so far.”
Among the regional areas, regional Victoria had the biggest monthly decline of 0.29%.
Regional prices dropped by 0.19% in Queensland and 0.17% in Western Australia, but only slipped 0.04% in regional NSW.
