House values rose last month in every major Australian city except for Perth, according to the latest home value report from CoreLogic.
House values rose last month in every major Australian city except for Perth, according to the latest home value report from CoreLogic.
Perth house prices fell 0.4 per cent over the month of October, while Melbourne and Sydney experienced the strongest dwellings growth out of all major Australian cities, rising 2.3 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively.
During the past 12 months, dwelling values in Perth have fallen 8.7 per cent and currently sit 21.6 percentage points below its peak in 2014.
Perth is now recording the lowest median house value of any capital city of $451,800, followed by Darwin with $468,300.
However, the decline in October was the smallest for Perth in 14 months, which CoreLogic said indicated an improvement in the decline trend.
The report disclosed a 1.2 per cent rise in national house prices, which it said was the fourth straight month of rising values and the largest month-on-month gain since May 2015.
CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said the stronger rebound in house values in Melbourne and Sydney could be attributed to tighter labour market conditions and stronger population growth relative to other capital cities.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that the housing market rebound is gathering pace, both geographically and across the broad valuation cohorts, off the back of lower mortgage rates and improved access to credit, as well as an improvement in affordability relative to the market peak several years ago,” he said.
For the quarter, the report disclosed five of the eight capital cities to have experienced a fall in rental values.
Rental prices in Perth and Hobart fell 0.3 per cent, with Darwin the worst affected by the decline, falling 1.1 per cent in the last three months to October 30.
Only Brisbane and Adelaide experienced a rise in rental prices, growing 0.2 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively.
CoreLogic said soft rental conditions could be attributed to a significant increase in dwelling construction skewed towards rental accommodation in the high-rise sector.
“Additionally, a larger than normal number of renters have transitioned to first home buyers, thereby denting rental demand,” the report said.
Accompanying the trend in rising house values in Australia was an increase in sales activity.
The Real Estate Institute of Western Australia also disclosed sales transactions had increased 16 per cent, according to its October data.
REIWA deputy president Lisa Joyce said it was encouraging to not only see market activity lift across both sectors, but also improvements on all aspects of the rental market.
"reiwa.com data has shown leasing activity has improved 16 per cent with 4,678 new leases signed in October. Levels this high have not been recorded since January this year,” she said.
National dwelling values still remain 5.7 per cent below its peak with house prices at a similar level to where they were in 2016, CoreLogic said.
Last week, a report from CoreLogic-Moody’s Analytics pushed back the national housing market’s predicted recovery to 2021.
It said Perth’s dwelling prices were likely to hit a trough next year but would gradually recover as the economy improved, with recovery to start in 2020.
