While home prices in every capital city aside from Hobart and Canberra fell during the last quarter due to the continuing COVID-19 crisis, homes are rising in value across much of regional Australia.
The latest Domain House Price Report shows that ‘median dwelling values’, a combination of houses and units, rose over the last quarter, albeit by 0.1 per cent. Capital city prices fell an average of 2.1 per cent.
“Regional areas typically do not provide the big swings of cities, and do provide homeowners with steady capital growth,” Domain senior research analyst Nicola Powell said.
“Sydney and Melbourne’s prices have had bigger gains in the past and so have also had bigger losses,” Dr Powell continues, “whereas regional areas have had strong growth but haven’t surpassed city counterparts. When they have fallen they’ve typically been soft falls.”
While these results can be seen as being ‘despite’ the pandemic, in truth, COVID-19 may have driven many to look further afield for property.
“I think the pandemic has made us all evaluate where we are, the lifestyles that we live and what we’re offering in terms of bringing up our children,” Dr Powell said.
“It’s forced many of us to work remotely, forced business to be more open-minded to a remote workforce and I think that could lead to a change in buying behaviour from homeowners.”
