The Australian home sector outperforming the rest
Pandemic fuelled renovations have only strengthened prices at this end of the market
3 min
Luxury houses have experienced a far stronger rate of capital growth than the rest of the market over the past 10 years, according to a historical analysis by Australia’s largest agency network, Ray White. Family houses at the median price point have increased by 78 percent in value over the past decade, while prestige houses priced within the top five percent of homes have doubled in value.
Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee said land was a large component of prestige homes’ value and this created stronger rates of capital growth.
“There are only so many properties you can build in our most expensive suburbs, which tend to be located close to beaches, bays and rivers,” Ms Conisbee said. “Anything with even more unique characteristics that are hard to replicate, such as a view or close proximity to the water, are likely to have increased even further.”
Strong renovation activity during and after the pandemic accelerated capital growth.
“Luxury homes have become even more expensive over time as more investment has taken place,” Ms Conisbee said. “And while it is not possible to measure, it is likely a higher proportion of well-located luxury homes have been renovated than the rest of the market and almost certainly true that more has been spent on them.”
Luxury apartments have also grown in value at a much higher rate than average units. Ms Conisbee said this indicated the rising popularity of apartment living among wealthy Australians. Developers are increasingly catering to this trend by producing high-quality lifestyle apartments with large floorplans, many luxurious inclusions and access to world-class amenities and services.
Ms Conisbee said prestige home values also had a higher rate of appreciation because Australia’s rich were getting richer.
“A recent report from Oxfam has found that the wealth of Australia’s richest people has increased at a rate of $1.5 million per hour since 2020,” she said. “A lot of this wealth has been invested in luxury homes around Australia.”
The most expensive homes in Australia
CoreLogic data shows the most expensive suburb in Australia for houses is Bellevue Hill in Sydney, with a median value of $9.73 million. Nearby Point Piper is the most expensive suburb for apartments with a median of $3.32 million. In 2023, Australia’s top five sales occurred in Bellevue Hill, nearby Vaucluse and Hawthorn in Melbourne, ranging from $39 million to $76 million.
In regional Australia, the most expensive suburbs are Sunshine Beach in Queensland with a median house price of $2.38 million, Gerroa in NSW ($2.34 million), Surfers Paradise in Queensland ($2.27 million), Burradoo in NSW ($2.25 million) and Noosa Heads in Queensland ($2.24 million).
During the pandemic, the highest capital growth was seen in the most desirable and expensive regional markets, as wealthy city dwellers bought large lifestyle homes and holiday residences in prime seachange and treechange areas. Last year, this trend reversed, with the greatest capital gains seen in more affordable regional coastal towns, according to a new CoreLogic report released today.
The report shows that 35% of Australia’s regional coastal markets had record-high median values at the end of 2023, despite rising interest rates and cost of living pressures. The study analysed 368 coastal markets located at least 50km from the nearest capital city to reveal the top 20 gainers. All of these suburbs had a median value well below $1 million and Western Australia dominated the list.
CoreLogic Research Director Tim Lawless said: “The performance of those with the largest gains and the highest growth rates are not the glamorous hot spots that rose to prominence during COVID. The past 12 months has seen markets that offer a combination of value and lifestyle attributes, such as commuting distance to a major city, great beaches, and quality housing at a more affordable price point, outperform more well-known areas.
“Suburbs in areas such as Western Australia and more northern regions of Queensland where it’s still possible to make a seachange for less than $1 million were the strongest performers last year. Although home values in these regions are mostly at record highs, they remain relatively affordable for seachangers selling out of more expensive metro markets.”
Highest annual capital gains in 2023 – regional coastal towns
Source: CoreLogic
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This may be contributing to continually rising weekly rents
2 min
There has been a substantial increase in the number of Australians earning high incomes who are renting their homes instead of owning them, and this may be another element contributing to higher market demand and continually rising rents, according to new research.
The portion of households with an annual income of $140,000 per year (in 2021 dollars), went from 8 percent of the private rental market in 1996 to 24 percent in 2021, according to research by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI). The AHURI study highlights that longer-term declines in the rate of home ownership in Australia are likely the cause of this trend.
The biggest challenge this creates is the flow-on effect on lower-income households because they may face stronger competition for a limited supply of rental stock, and they also have less capacity to cope with rising rents that look likely to keep going up due to the entrenched undersupply.
The 2024 ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report notes that weekly rents have been rising strongly since the pandemic and are currently re-accelerating. “Nationally, annual rent growth has lifted from a recent low of 8.1 percent year-on-year in October 2023, to 8.6 percent year-on-year in March 2024,” according to the report. “The re-acceleration was particularly evident in house rents, where annual growth bottomed out at 6.8 percent in the year to September, and rose to 8.4 percent in the year to March 2024.”
Rents are also rising in markets that have experienced recent declines. “In Hobart, rent values saw a downturn of -6 percent between March and October 2023. Since bottoming out in October, rents have now moved 5 percent higher to the end of March, and are just 1 percent off the record highs in March 2023. The Canberra rental market was the only other capital city to see a decline in rents in recent years, where rent values fell -3.8 percent between June 2022 and September 2023. Since then, Canberra rents have risen 3.5 percent, and are 1 percent from the record high.”
The Productivity Commission’s review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement points out that high-income earners also have more capacity to relocate to cheaper markets when rents rise, which creates more competition for lower-income households competing for homes in those same areas.
ANZ CoreLogic notes that rents in lower-cost markets have risen the most in recent years, so much so that the portion of earnings that lower-income households have to dedicate to rent has reached a record high 54.3 percent. For middle-income households, it’s 32.2 percent and for high-income households, it’s just 22.9 percent. ‘Housing stress’ has long been defined as requiring more than 30 percent of income to put a roof over your head.
While some high-income households may aspire to own their own homes, rising property values have made that a difficult and long process given the years it takes to save a deposit. ANZ CoreLogic data shows it now takes a median 10.1 years in the capital cities and 9.9 years in regional areas to save a 20 percent deposit to buy a property.
It also takes 48.3 percent of income in the cities and 47.1 percent in the regions to cover mortgage repayments at today’s home loan interest rates, which is far greater than the portion of income required to service rents at a median 30.4 percent in cities and 33.3 percent in the regions.
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