The Australian property market continues to build steam, with new data showing 82.4 per cent of house and unit suburbs recorded a jump in values in the past three months.
According to CoreLogic’s Mapping the Market, 83.1 per cent of house markets and 80.6 per cent of unit markets saw values rise.
CoreLogic Head of Research Eliza Owen said despite high interest rates and weakening economic conditions, prices are still rising.
“It’s often noted that Australia is not ‘one housing market’ and we’re currently seeing increased diversity in capital city market performance,” Ms Owen said.
“That’s reflected in city-wide growth rates, the various levels of supply that’s available in some cities over others, and it’s reflected in the different suburbs we analyse in this report.”
She said capital city markets are running at very different speeds, with Perth the strongest market while Hobart and Darwin are flat or falling.
“At one end of the spectrum, suburb-level analysis reflects the extraordinary growth trend across cities like Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane,” she said.
“In these cities, total listings levels are low, city-wide capital growth is running a bit over 1 per cent per month, and migration trends from both overseas and interstate favour more housing demand.”
In Brisbane, each of the 162 unit markets analysed saw values rise in the past three months, while of the 305 house markets, only four had a quarterly decline.
The increase was led by the higher-end suburbs of Kalinga and Windsor as well as the more affordable Redland, spots of Macleay Island and Lamb Island.
Across Adelaide, only 3 per cent of house markets recorded a decline in the quarter, but there was a notable portion of unit markets in decline.
For Perth, there was one suburb where house values fell in the past three months, which was Mount Hawthorn, and Ms Owen said even there the house market sustained only a mild decline of 0.2 per cent.
“Remarkably, 98.1 per cent of the house and unit markets across Perth rose in value over the past three months, and 96.3 per cent of suburb dwelling markets in Perth were at record high values at the end of October,” she said.
Meanwhile, Sydney and Melbourne weren’t as strong as the smaller capitals but they still saw growth of 2.5 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively in the past three months.
“The pace of growth across both markets has slowed from the middle of the year, when the June rate-hike surprised financial markets and many economists’ predictions,” Ms Owen said.
“Currently, growth in Sydney markets is strongest across relatively expensive house markets, with Five Dock houses topping the three-month capital growth ranking (up 8.4 per cent).
“In Melbourne, it was the more mid-priced unit market of Moorabbin which topped the list, increasing 7.4 per cent.”
Despite most of the market remaining strong across Hobart and Darwin 41 per cent of house markets saw a quarterly decline.
Ms Owen said overall, Hobart home values rose 0.3 per cent higher in the past three months, but capital growth trends have been shaky, and total listings are trending about 47 per cent higher than the previous five-year average.
“The city has seen value falls recorded in three of the past six months. Declines across Hobart houses were led by a 3.2 per cent fall across the relatively expensive market of Sandford,” she said.
“Canberra has also seen relatively flat capital growth trends, and particular weakness in the unit market. 32 of 39 unit markets analysed in Canberra saw a quarterly decline, with the steepest fall in O’Connor, down 4.1 per cent.”
Across regional markets, conditions are equally diverse, with regional Queensland the strongest house market and regional SA the best performing unit market.
