Home prices have fallen in most Australian capital cities since the beginning of the year

Home prices fell in three of Australia’s state capitals last week, including Sydney and Melbourne.
So far this year, prices have fallen in all mainland state capitals aside from Brisbane.
Property listings have increased across Australia’s capital cities over the past year.

Australian home prices fell across most of Australia’s mainland state capitals last week, including in Sydney and Melbourne.

According to CoreLogic, prices in Australia’s largest and most expensive housing markets slipped by 0.1%. Along with a similar decline in Adelaide, and flat results in Brisbane and Perth, it saw prices across the capitals fall 0.1% in weighted terms.

With most centres recording a decline for the week, it left prices across the state capitals down 0.2% over the past month.

By individual capital, prices fell by 0.4% in Sydney, the largest of any city monitored by CoreLogic on a week to week basis.

Elsewhere, prices slipped by 0.1% in Adelaide over the same period while those in Melbourne and Perth were flat. Brisbane, at 0.2%, was the only capital monitored where prices rose from a month earlier.

Largely reflecting continued weakness in Sydney, prices across the mainland state capitals have now fallen 0.9% in 2018.

Prices in Sydney have fallen 1.7%, while those in Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne have declined by a smaller 0.5%, 0.4% and 0.3% respectively.

Brisbane, like the monthly performance, was the only capital of those tracked to register an increase at 0.1%.

The recent slowdown, led by Australia’s southeastern capitals, has seen annual price slow to 1.1%, well below the double-digit percentage gains seen in early 2017.

That reflects a variety of factors, including affordability constraints in some cities, tougher lending restrictions on interest-only mortgage lending and higher mortgage rates for some investor loans.

That has likely contributed to a moderation in auction clearance rates across the country, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne.

Along with demand-side factors, supply has also increased recently, helping to place downward pressure on prices.

According to CoreLogic, total property listings stood at 111,754 last week, up 3.1% on the levels seen one year earlier.

That reflects a large increase in stock up for sale in Sydney, lifting 22.3% over the year to 26,908 dwellings.

Stock up for sale also increased in Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra over the the year, albeit by a far smaller degree to the lift seen in Sydney.

Property listings in Adelaide were largely unchanged from a year earlier while those in Perth and Darwin, Australia’s mining capitals, fell by 5.7% and 6.8% from 12 months earlier, hinting that the worst of the price declines in these centres may be behind vendors.

Helping to underpin recent price gains in Hobart, total listings in Australia’s southern-most capital fell by 35.6% over the year to 1,086.

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