Home prices fall for 10th consecutive month

PropTrack's Home Price Index found that home prices fell 0.9 per cent nationally for the month of January, marking the 10th consecutive month to record a decline in prices. All capital cities (with the exclusion of Perth and Darwin) recorded price drops.

Prices are currently sitting 4.51 per cent below their recent peak and down 3.27 per cent when compared to January 2022. However, despite these declines, prices nationally still sit 28.5 per cent above pre-pandemic levels.

Although Sydney, Brisbane, Hobart, and Canberra have all experienced declines in prices at the fastest pace in over a decade, all home prices in capital cities still remain above pre-COVID-19 levels as well.

Canberra has seen the fastest and steepest drops over this period with the latest decline being 0.24 per cent followed by Melbourne at 0.22 per cent.

In third place was Adelaide with a drop of 0.14 per cent followed by Brisbane (0.07 per cent), Sydney (0.06 per cent), and Hobart at 0.05 per cent.

Perth recorded an increase for the month at 0.06 per cent while Darwin remained unchanged, still holding out at peak levels.

Overall, capital city prices were down 4.68 per cent on the previous corresponding period while regionally, it rose 0.32 per cent.

CoreLogic’s Home Value Index (HVI) fell 1.0 per cent for January, which was a slight improvement on the 1.1 per cent drop recorded in December 2022 along with being the smallest month-on-month fall since June 2022.

The HVI saw a reduction in the rate of decline in most capital cities except for Adelaide (0.8 per cent fall) and Perth (0.3 per cent).

Each capital city recorded a fall in dwelling values throughout the month, which was led by Hobart at a decline of 1.7 per cent followed by Brisbane at 1.4 per cent. Perth (0.3 per cent) and Darwin (0.1 per cent) recorded the smallest drops in the capitals.

Median dwelling values for Sydney dropped below $1 million for the first time since March 2021 with a fall of 1.2 per cent in January, improving on the 1.4 per cent fall seen in December 2022.

CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless stated despite housing downturn remaining “geographically broad-based”, there are signs that some momentum has left the housing downturn.

“The quarterly trend in housing values is clearly pointing to a reduction in the pace of decline across most regions, however at -1.0 per cent over the month and -3.2 per cent over the rolling quarter, national housing values are still falling quite rapidly compared to previous downturns,” Mr Lawless said.

According to the research, January marked a “new record” for how much and how fast dwelling values fell nationally.

The national HVI was down 8.9 per cent since its peak in April 2022, making it the largest and fastest decline in values since CoreLogic’s records began in 1980.

Mr Lawless added: “Record declines in home values follow a record upswing, both in magnitude and speed. The national HVI was up a stunning 28.6 per cent in the space of just 19 months.

“Despite the recent sharp drop in values, every capital city and rest-of-state region is still recording home values above pre-pandemic levels, although Melbourne’s index would only need to fall a further -0.4 per cent before equaling the March 2020 reading.”

Dwelling values saw their lowest monthly fall in November 2022, revealing that the rate of decline has been consistently moderating since the national index dropped by 1.6 per cent in August 2022.

[RELATED: Dwelling values see lowest monthly fall since August: CoreLogic]