Perth housing market sits in the red alone

Perth is now the only capital to record a year-on-year fall in house prices, and was the weakest-performing city in the three months to November, according to new data.

But Perth dwelling prices did improve 0.6 per cent last month to a median dwelling price of $490,000, according to CoreLogic RP Data.

On an annual basis, every capital city except for Perth is now showing a positive annual trend in dwelling value growth, with Darwin last month returning to the black.

Perth home prices are 3.4 per cent lower year on year, and 1.1 per cent lower in the three months to November.

The data follows a gloomy forecast for Perth house prices by a CoreLogic-Moody’s Home Value Index report yesterday, which predicted the city’s house prices would fall by 4.5 per cent by the end of 2016 and a further 5.8 per cent in 2017, before beginning a slow recovery in 2018.

Nationally, CoreLogic’s data today showed a 0.2 per cent rise in the combined capital city dwelling values in November, although CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless said the monthly gain was the softest result since December last year.

“The soft performance across the combined capital city reading was attributable to a 1.5 per cent fall in the Melbourne index, while all other capital cities recorded a positive month-on-month result,” he said.

“Delving into the Melbourne results in more detail showed that unit values were down a larger 3.2 per cent in November, while Melbourne house prices declined by 1.3 per cent over the month.”

“The November results also show a rise in transaction numbers across the Darwin market over recent months, supporting the moderate improvement in market conditions that the hedonic index is showing.”