2021 house price boom won't repeat: PICA

“The rising tide did lift all ships in 2021,” commented Ben Kingsley, chairman of the Property Investors Council of Australia (PICA).

'What was interesting, because it’s unusual to see this happen right across Australia at the same time, is that growth rates in many major regional centres matched or beat some of the capital city markets, on the back of COVD-19 regional demand remaining very strong right throughout 2021.”

While the great regionalisation is expected to continue to remain a popular lifestyle shift throughout the coming year, Mr Kingsley opines that if Australia’s market recovery remains on track, we will see a return to differing levels of growth across markets and property classes.

“Generally speaking, growth levels of this nature year on year are very rare and hard to sustain right across Australia, so I believe we are going to move away from a unified growth story, where all markets are firing, and move back to the markets within markets story with some markets representing better value than others,” he said.

And though 2021 was considered a great year to sell properties with encumbrances that might have previously struggled to find buyers, Mr Kingsley says that the capital markets, in particular, might once again be somewhat divided in terms of the percentage returns expected on properties of different condition and calibre.

“With selling supply increasing in our major centres of Sydney and Melbourne, the story might be more about A, B and C class properties and buyer interest in these assets,” Mr Kingsley remarked.

“Usually, in a turning or softening market, A class assets sell well, but the vendor sale price expectations of B and C class asset might need to be adjusted.”

[Related: Housing values grew 22.1% in 2021]