Heat coming out of V-shaped property market recovery
Sydney and Melbourne are cooling but Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide are still rocketing, according to new price data
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The V-shaped recovery in Australia’s property market was interrupted in November, with CoreLogic’s national home value index recording its smallest monthly gain since the new growth cycle began in February. Melbourne home values dipped by 0.1% and Sydney’s growth rate slowed sharply to 0.3%, representing a significant cooling in Australia’s two biggest property markets, and dragging down the national home value growth rate to 0.6%.
Factors taking the heat out of Melbourne and Sydney include affordability constraints, rising interest rates, pessimistic consumer sentiment and a higher number of homes for sale. CoreLogic Research Director Tim Lawless said market weakness was more pronounced in the upper price brackets. “The more expensive end of the market tends to lead the cycles in these cities. As borrowing capacity reduces, we may be seeing more demand deflected towards lower housing price points, with the broad middle of the market now recording the strongest rate of growth in Sydney and Melbourne.”
Meantime, the Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide markets continue to rise strongly. Perth dwelling values surged by 1.9% in November – the largest monthly gain since March 2021 – while Brisbane moved 1.3% higher and Adelaide went up 1.2%. Mr Lawless said buyer demand was strong amid low levels of supply. “This imbalance between available supply and demonstrated demand is keeping strong upwards pressure on housing values across these markets, despite the downside factors leading to weaker housing market conditions across the lower eastern seaboard,” Mr Lawless said.
Canberra recorded subdued growth at 0.5%, Hobart values fell 0.1% and Darwin values fell 0.3% last month. The supply of homes for sale began increasing over winter, which is seasonally unusual, leading to stock levels above five-year averages in Hobart, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney today.“In these cities, market conditions are now in favour of buyers as higher stock levels provide more choice, less urgency and greater opportunities to negotiate,” Mr Lawless said.
“The same can’t be said for Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, where advertised stock levels remain remarkably low. Perth listings are nearly 40% below their five-year average for this time of the year, while listings are more than 30% below average in Brisbane and Adelaide. Unsurprisingly, these cities are continuing to show a consistently high rate of growth amid strong selling conditions.”
Perth, Brisbane and Sydney have been the strongest performing capital city markets of 2023 with home values up 13.6%, 11.9% and 11.3%, respectively. Regional markets have lagged behind the capital cities this year, with the strongest gains seen in regional South Australia, up 9.6%, regional Queensland, up 7.9% and regional Western Australia, up 7%. Overall, regional property prices remain 1.8% below their historical peak recorded at the top of the last cycle in May 2022.
Mr Lawless said it would be “a very different housing market” in 2024. “It is looking increasingly clear the housing market is moving through a new inflection point, with the rate of growth in home values becoming more diverse, but generally weakening,” he said. The prospect of higher interest rates for longer has likely dampened buyer confidence as well. “We don’t expect to see a material lift in housing activity until interest rates reduce, and that isn’t likely until the second half of next year.”
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The typically busy spring season for the housing market was a dud, and the summer isn’t looking much brighter.
Housing services companies like Zillow Group and Rocket RKT +3.78% were loud and clear last week on earnings calls: Rocket CEO Varun Krishna called the quarter through June “one of the toughest spring housing markets in years.”
Jeremy Hofmann, Zillow’s chief financial officer, said on a conference call that the company predicted earlier this year that the market for mortgages would be flat. “We actually now think it’s going to be down low-to-mid-single digits,” he said.
The rest of 2026 will remain challenging for mortgage origination volume, says KBW analyst Bose George. The question now is what happens in 2027. “If mortgage rates remain [around] 6.75%, I think that’s going to be challenging even for next year,” he says.
But what’s bad news for mortgage companies could be a positive for bargain hunters. Buyers can expect prices to grow more slowly—or mildly decline—with less competition as long as mortgage rates remain unpredictable.
Mortgage rates at the beginning of the year were solidly below year-ago levels, notes Zillow senior economist Kara Ng. But they surpassed last year’s levels recently, she adds, referencing Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of 30-year fixed mortgage rates. Last week’s reading, at 6.69%, was higher than year-ago levels for the first time in 2026.
“From the affordability point of view, it’s going to get more challenging in the second half of the year,” she says. “And when affordability gets more challenging, that impacts sales and home price appreciation.”
Mortgage application data tracked by the Mortgage Bankers Association has cooled since the beginning of the year. The trade group expects that the number of mortgage originations in the remaining two quarters will lag behind last year’s levels, after exceeding 2025 levels in the first half.
Rocket’s early-stage data—which the company told Barron’s it derives from its brokerage Redfin, demand for its mortgage products, and signs in its servicing portfolio that a homeowner is preparing to refinance or move—“leads us to expect the third quarter mortgage market to be smaller than the second,” Chief Financial Officer Brian Brown, said on the company’s call. He added that such an occurrence is “something the industry has not seen since 2022.”
Prices will be about flat nationally, Ng says. Zillow’s most recent forecast, which shows how values are expected to change in the year ending June 2027, show them dropping in roughly half of the 100 largest U.S. metros for which data is available.
Buyers aren’t rushing in at a time when mortgage costs are rising and unpredictable. But those with the right combination of patience and cash could stand to benefit. “If you are financially qualified to buy a starter home, you are facing less competition and you’re more likely to get a price cut,” Ng says.
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