Home buyers are expected to become more active over the next three years as conditions in the property market improve, a report says.
The Residential Property Prospects, 2012 to 2015 report from economic forecaster BIS Shrapnel says NSW and the resource-rich states of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory are already showing signs of recovery.
However, the rest of the country – Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory – will lag behind because of what the report says is an emerging excess of housing.
BIS Shrapnel senior manager Angie Zigomanis said the number of first-home buyers in the market, which fell after the temporary boost to the federal government’s first-home owners’ grant ended, were slowly returning to normal levels.
Mr Zigomanis said lower interest rates and more overseas migrants coming to live in Australia were also indications that some of the negative factors that pushed house prices down in 2010 and 2011 were beginning to turn around.
“The recovery is expected to eventually gain traction through 2013 as continued growth in resource investment spending eventually flows through to other sectors of the economy,” Mr Zigomanis said in a statement.
“With the local economic and employment outlook becoming more positive, and some stabilisation and improvement overseas, purchasers are forecast to wade back into the market in greater numbers, translating to greater sales volumes and a pick-up in price growth over 2013/14 and into 2014/15.”
Perth and Brisbane were forecast to record the highest growth in median house prices over the next three years at 22 per cent and 20 per cent respectively, with Sydney just behind at 17 per cent and Darwin at 15 per cent.
This compared with a forecast nine per cent increase for Adelaide, five per cent for Hobart, three per cent for Melbourne, and just one per cent for Canberra.
