Home values still growing but at slower speeds
Perth and Adelaide now more expensive than Melbourne
3 min
Australian home prices increased for the 19th consecutive month in August, with the national median price rising by 0.5% to a median $802,357, according to new figures from CoreLogic. However, there is significant diversity between the capital city markets, with some areas recording price falls. Home values rose the most in Perth at 2 percent but fell the most in Canberra by 0.4 percent.
CoreLogic says the pace of price growth across the country is slowing, primarily due to affordability constraints and an easing of very tight supply and demand in the strongest markets. Over the three months ending August 30, the national median rose by 1.3 percent, which is less than half the 2.7 percent increase recorded over the same period last year.
Perth remains the hottest property market in the country, with values rising 2 percent to a median of $785,250 last month. Values rose by 1.4% in Adelaide to a median $790,789, and by 1.1% in Brisbane to a median $875,040. Sydney home values lifted by 0.3% to a median price of $1,180,463.
Four capital cities saw a fall in home prices in August, led by Canberra with an 0.4 percent fall to a median value of $845,875. Melbourne and Darwin recorded an 0.2 percent drop to a median of $776,044 and $504,367, respectively. Hobart values softened by 0.1 percent to $655,114.
For the first time since February 2015 when Western Australia was coming out of a mining boom, Perth’s median home value is now higher than Melbourne’s median price. Adelaide has also reached a new milestone with its median value also exceeding Melbourne’s for the first time in the four decades that CoreLogic has been tracking home prices.
Melbourne’s median price is now the third lowest among the capital cities. While the city’s higher proportion of apartments skews its overall home price median lower, there are other factors behind Melbourne’s softening market. These include higher supply, with Victoria building more homes over the past decade than any other state or territory, and lower investor demand due to increased taxes.
CoreLogic’s Head of Research, Eliza Owen said seasonality may have contributed to weaker overall value growth throughout Winter, but affordability was the greater factor. Higher interest rates are limiting buyers’ borrowing capacity and high cost of living pressures are reducing demand.
CoreLogic estimates that an affordable purchase for a median-income household is just $500,000. However, the national median value has just risen above $800,000. Ms Owen said this discrepancy has likely narrowed the buyer pool to wealthier and higher-income buyers.
Sydney
Sydney’s median house price rose by 0.3 percent in August to $1,471,892. The median apartment price rose by 0.5 percent to $859,050.
Melbourne
Melbourne’s median house price fell by 0.2 percent in August to $929,715. The median apartment price dipped 0.1 percent to $610,652.
Brisbane
Brisbane’s median house price increased by 0.9 percent in August to $966,382. The median apartment price rose by 1.7 percent to $653,325.
Adelaide
Adelaide’s median house value lifted 1.4 percent in August to $844,963. The median apartment price rose by 1.5 percent to $555,464.
Perth
Perth’s median house price rose strongly by 1.9 percent in August to $818,839. The median apartment price increased by 2.2 percent to $561,582.
Canberra
Canberra’s median house price eased 0.3 percent in August to $967,933. The median apartment price fell 0.5 percent to $579,774.
Hobart
Hobart’s median house price dipped 0.4 percent in August to $692,606. The median apartment price went the other way, rising by 1.3 percent to $549,569.
Darwin
Darwin’s median house price dipped by 0.1 percent in August to $589,392. The median apartment price fell 0.5 percent to $355,297.
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On Bastille Day, the scent of toasted bread, melting cheese, crêpes and velouté filled a heritage warehouse in Sydney’s Darlinghurst.
Inside Prim Haus, rooms had been transformed into an elegant interpretation of a contemporary French home. Cookware hung alongside market produce, appliances were placed within carefully composed domestic settings and live kitchens turned out French comfort food throughout the afternoon.
The occasion was La Maison de Tefal, an immersive celebration marking 70 years since a French engineer introduced an invention that would fundamentally change home cooking.
Tefal’s story began in 1956 with the commercial launch of what the company describes as the world’s first non-stick frying pan. Seven decades later, the business operates across cookware, kitchen appliances, garment care and floor care in more than 120 countries.
The scale of the modern brand is considerable, but its origins were remarkably domestic.
The invention that started in a French kitchen
In the early 1950s, French engineer Marc Grégoire began experimenting with polytetrafluoroethylene, better known as PTFE, after discovering its unusually effective non-stick properties.
The material was already known within industrial applications. Grégoire’s important contribution was developing a way to bond it securely to an aluminium disc.
According to the company’s history, a conversation with his wife inspired him to apply the process to cookware. The resulting pan allowed meat and eggs to be cooked using less fat, while making the surface considerably easier to clean.
Grégoire patented his non-stick frying-pan concept in 1954 and began selling the finished product in 1956. The new company’s name combined the French words for the two defining materials: Téflon and aluminium.
The attraction was immediate. This was innovation expressed through a simple, recognisable household problem. Food stuck to pans; the new Tefal pan was designed so it would not.
The idea quickly travelled beyond France. Tefal entered the United States in 1961, the same year the company established the production site at Rumilly, near the French Alps. Rumilly would become the centre of Tefal’s cookware expertise and develop an identity as the “frying pan capital of the world”.
The company says more than 35 million cookware items were manufactured at the Rumilly site in 2022. A local museum holds the 500 millionth pan produced by the factory, which came off the line in March 1994.
A Parisian home in the heart of Sydney
La Maison de Tefal translated that industrial history into a more intimate experience.
Held on 14 July, the anniversary used Bastille Day as both a cultural reference and a reminder that Tefal’s identity remains closely connected to French design and engineering.
Prim Haus was arranged as a sequence of domestic environments rather than a conventional product showroom. Guests moved through spaces devoted to cookware, kitchen appliances, garment care and floor care, with each collection presented within the rhythm of a modern home.
A French-market-inspired cooking area formed the social centre of the event. Live stations served croque-monsieur, crêpes and butternut velouté, demonstrating the products through food rather than static displays.
That distinction matters. Tefal’s most successful products have generally been those whose benefit can be understood almost immediately: a pan that releases food, a removable handle that saves cupboard space, an indicator showing when cookware has reached the correct temperature, or an appliance that automates part of a familiar cooking process.
Interactive demonstrations allowed guests to handle the products and see those functions in context. Heritage installations traced the brand’s development, while previews of newer releases connected its first frying pan with the much broader contemporary range.
The anniversary concluded with a champagne toast — an appropriately French punctuation mark for a company whose products have found their way into kitchens around the world.
Seventy years of practical invention
The non-stick frying pan established the operating principle Tefal continues to follow: find an everyday source of friction and develop a practical way to reduce it.
In 1996, the company introduced Ingenio, a modular cookware system built around removable handles. Pans could be stacked more efficiently and moved from cooktop to oven, table and refrigerator without the fixed handle of conventional cookware.
The concept anticipated the pressures that would reshape urban kitchens. As apartments became more compact and storage more valuable, cookware needed to occupy less room and serve more than one function.
Around the beginning of the following decade, Tefal introduced its heat-indicator technology, now known as Thermo-Signal. The circular marker changes appearance when the pan reaches its recommended cooking temperature, turning a technical question into a visual prompt.
In 2006, Tefal expanded the possibilities of countertop cooking with ActiFry. The appliance circulated hot air around food and used little or no added oil, helping establish a product category that would eventually become one of the most competitive areas of the global appliance market.
Innovation also moved beyond cooking. The Freemove cordless steam iron arrived in 2012, removing the cord from the active ironing movement while retaining a powered base.
The company’s current portfolio now extends across multicookers, grills, air fryers, blenders, ice-cream makers, garment steamers, irons and floor-care products. Although the categories are diverse, the common proposition remains convenience grounded in engineering.
The next generation of non-stick cookware
For its 70th year, Tefal has returned to the product that created the brand.
The new Excellence+ cookware range introduces what the company calls FusionCore technology. Tefal describes it as its most durable non-stick coating to date, designed to withstand intensive use and scratching.
As with any durability claim, consumers should follow the manufacturer’s care instructions and consider the applicable warranty rather than interpreting promotional language as a guarantee against every form of damage. But the focus on longer-lasting coatings reflects an important change in buyer expectations.
Convenience is no longer enough on its own. Modern households are increasingly concerned with how long products remain useful, whether they can be repaired and what happens when they reach the end of their working life.
Tefal has responded in several ways. Its Renew cookware uses recycled aluminium and a ceramic non-stick coating, while Groupe SEB has expanded cookware recycling initiatives in international markets. For many small domestic appliances, the group also promotes a 15-year repairability commitment based on parts availability and access to authorised repairers.
The details and warranty periods vary by product and country, so Australian buyers should check the conditions attached to an individual appliance. Nevertheless, repairability represents a meaningful shift from the assumption that a failed countertop appliance should simply be discarded.
From French manufacturer to global household group
Tefal joined Groupe SEB in 1968, giving the company greater international distribution and the resources to expand beyond cookware.
Founded in 1857 and headquartered in France, Groupe SEB has grown into a global small-appliance and cookware business with more than 30 brands. Its portfolio includes All-Clad, Krups, Moulinex, Rowenta, Lagostina and WMF, with operations extending across more than 150 countries.
Within that group, Tefal remains one of the flagship names — and one of the clearest examples of how a single invention can become the foundation for an international consumer brand.
Its longevity has not come from making everyday objects more complicated. The strongest Tefal products do the opposite. They take a small uncertainty, inconvenience or frustration and design it out of the task.
That was the value of Marc Grégoire’s original frying pan. It did not ask people to change what they cooked. It made the existing process easier, more predictable and less difficult to clean afterwards.
Seventy years later, that deceptively modest principle continues to guide the company.
La Maison de Tefal celebrated the products, the French heritage and the anniversary itself. Yet the larger story was visible at every cooking station and demonstration: innovation becomes lasting only when people can use it without having to think about the technology underneath.
For Tefal, the next 70 years will be shaped by new materials, smarter appliances, changing homes and greater expectations around durability. Its challenge will be to keep evolving without losing sight of the insight that started everything — that the most valuable household inventions often solve the most ordinary problems.
Tefal at a glance
- Founded: France, 1956
- Founder: Engineer Marc Grégoire
- Original innovation: Commercialisation of the first non-stick frying pan
- Manufacturing heritage: Rumilly, France
- Notable innovations: Ingenio, Thermo-Signal, ActiFry and Freemove
- Latest cookware development: Excellence+ with FusionCore technology
- Parent company: Groupe SEB
- International presence: More than 120 countries
- Australian website: Tefal Australia
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