Sydney drags down national home values

According to the report, the national pull-back was led by slow housing market conditions in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Darwin.

CoreLogic’s head of research, Tim Lawless, stated that the change was significant when compared to previous index figures.

“From a macro perspective, late 2016 marked a peak in the pace of capital gains across Australia, with national dwelling values rising at the rolling quarterly pace of 3.7 per cent over the three months to November,” Mr Lawless said.

“In 2017, we saw growth rates and transactional activity gradually lose steam, with national month-on-month capital gains slowing to 0 per cent in October and November before turning negative in December.”

Darwin experienced the greatest dwelling value reduction (-0.9 per cent), followed by Sydney (-0.8 per cent), Melbourne (-0.2 per cent) and Perth (-0.1 per cent).

Mr Lawless claimed that Sydney’s housing market “has become the most significant drag” on the growth figures, but he added that despite experiencing a home value reduction, Melbourne’s market was “far more resilient”.

“The city’s housing market has been far more resilient to negative growth compared with Sydney due to factors such as stronger population growth, lower affordability hurdles and a higher rate of jobs growth,” the research head said.

“[However], the growth trend has been clearly moderating since late 2016 and Melbourne’s annual rate of capital gain, at 8.9 per cent, has fallen below double digits for the first time in 11 months.”

Further, the chief of research believes that Darwin’s housing market downturn is “retrenched”, with the city experiencing negative growth trends since May 2014, an accumulated housing value decline of 21.5 per cent.

Mr Lawless stated that despite negative growth in December, Perth’s negative growth is tightening, with annual decline of -2.4 per cent, the smallest since May 2015.

Home values in Brisbane remained stable at 0 per cent, while home values in both Adelaide and Canberra grew slightly by 0.2 per cent. Hobart was the best performing city, with a growth rate of 1.5 per cent in December.

Dwelling value growth was varied across Australia’s regional markets, with regional NSW’s capital gains up by 7.4 per cent, followed by regional Victoria, up by 4.2 per cent. However, home values in regional Western Australia fell by -4.3 per cent, while properties in regional South Australia fell slightly by -0.1 per cent.

[Related: Sydney dwelling values drop by 0.7%]