Australian property price falls may have already peaked
Hoping for further property price falls? Don’t hold your breath.
Hoping for further property price falls? Don’t hold your breath.
Rapid interest rate rises might have taken a toll on property prices, which reached an all-time high last year but the greatest drops may have already happened, Ray White economist Nerida Conisbee said today.
In a country as large and varied as Australia, positions for borrowers have ranged from low debt and high income conditions in some mining regions to high debt and high interest rates in cities like Sydney, where prices have fallen by more than 10 percent in the past year.
Low unemployment and accelerated population growth are also putting greater pressure on housing demand, keeping prices steady, she said.
“Although many people are starting to feel the pinch with increasing interest rates, as well as high inflation, we are yet to see this flow through to distressed sales,” Ms Conisbee said. “Prior to the interest rate rises, borrowers were assessed on being able to pay three percent over their mortgage rate.
“We have now hit that three percent rise but banks are profitable and well capitalised. As a result they are in a good position to assist people who are struggling with high debt levels.”
Some sellers are also sitting back, with more buyers competing for those properties on the market. Ms Conisbee said property sales are down more than 10 percent on last year.
While Australian property prices may have already taken their biggest tumble, Ms Conisbee said there may still be decreases on the cards.
“While inflation appears to be coming down, we may still see more interest rate increases next year if it fails to come down quickly enough,” she said. “Unemployment is very low but is expected to start to rise next year as the economy slows.
“The high levels of uncertainty are expected to continue into at least the first quarter of 2023.”
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After more than a year, prices have finally levelled out in prime central London, while outer London saw a small uptick in high-end prices from the previous quarter
The first quarter of the year brought some long-awaited signs of recovery in London’s luxury housing market, offering the first positive quarterly price growth since September 2022, according to a report from Savills on Wednesday.
After six consecutive quarterly price falls, luxury home prices in central London levelled out in the first three months of the year, with a 0.1% quarterly uptick in prices. The £3 million to £5 million (US$3.79 million to US$6.32 million) market saw a slightly larger increase of 0.3%.
Outer London’s luxury market saw greater quarterly price growth, with home prices up 0.8%, as some stability returned to mortgage costs and lured more buyers back to the market, according to the report.
All of this is evidence that the market is “in early stages of recovery,” according to Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills.
“The outlook for the housing market has certainly improved, partly because the mortgage market has recovered more quickly than expected,” Cook said in the report. “With the first rate cut rapidly coming into view and recessionary risks easing, greater stability has returned to the cost of mortgage debt, which has positively impacted domestic prime markets, where many buyers rely on borrowing, most notably in leafy outer prime South and West London, as well as the commuter belt.”
Outside of London, prices across the U.K. saw no quarterly growth heading into the beginning of the spring market, which is expected to bring higher levels of buyer activity in many regions.
Suburban regions saw prices dip just 0.1%, while urban areas—like Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, and Bath and Oxford in England—saw prices increase by 0.6%.
Cook said regional buyers are more likely to be concerned about market uncertainty than London buyers in the lead up to the general election.
“As a result, buyers are still expected to be less committed until the dust has settled,” he said.
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