Australia has ranked 19th in the world for house price growth for the year to June 2020, according to the Knight Frank Global House Price Index Q2 2020.
The index tracks the movement in mainstream residential prices
across more than 50 countries and territories worldwide using official statistics.
It showed Australia’s house prices grew 6.1 per cent over the year to June 30, 2020. This is despite a fall of 0.4 per cent over the final six months.
The prior year, Australia was ranked 56th, after negative growth of 7.4 per cent.
Knight Frank’s Head of Residential Research Australia, Michelle Ciesielski, warns the data used is incomplete, but still offers an accurate insight into changing housing prices.
“It is not unusual for official house price indices to be published with a two or three month time lag, but this quarter 29 of the 56 countries and territories we track have yet to report their figures for Q2 2020, no doubt as a direct result of COVID-19 and operational challenges,” she said.
“Despite this the data still offers a glimpse into the impact of COVID-19, with the number of countries and territories seeing a decline in prices increasing again. In total nine per cent of the areas tracked registered annual price declines in Q2 2020.
“While annual price growth in Australia has fallen slightly from the previous quarter, growth is still positive and 1.4 per cent higher than the average annual price change of 4.7 per cent across the 56 countries and territories tracked in the index.
“Australia has dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic better than some other countries and territories around the world, with the length and severity of the lockdown not as strong, which partly explains its stable performance.
“However, it can also be attributable to the state of the housing market prior to the pandemic, with Australia’s market strong heading into 2020 with demand high and stock levels low.”
Knight Frank National Head of Residential Shayne Harris said in Sydney, the market continues to be underpinned by a severe shortage of stock for sale by both auction and private treaty.
“Whilst in the past eight weeks the difficulties around obtaining finance have seen the number of registered bidders thin out at auction, the clearance rate remains stable as do prices across the inner and middle rings of metropolitan Sydney.
“In Melbourne market conditions have been in steady decline for the past four months, with volumes and prices heading gradually south, although there was a very slight uptick in August,” Mr Harris said.
“The cities second lockdown, combined with reliance on overseas immigration and education to support the market, could see these conditions continue beyond the other capital cities who are ahead of the curve in relation to recovery.
“In Brisbane quicker recovery from the pandemic than expected, combined with a tight apartment supply pipeline, has seen the Brisbane market emerge in a very strong position for 2021 and beyond.
“Coming off an extended period of low price growth, Brisbane’s affordability is the best capital city side by side with Perth in the short to medium term.”
The Knight Frank Global House Price Index is below
*Provisional
**Asking prices
*** Island-wide price index for non-landed properties
1 Data for Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia,
Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom and United States is to Q1 2020;
2 data for Malaysia and Morocco is to Q4 2019.
