It’s been a solid start to the year for the housing market, according to research house RP Data.
Sydney and Melbourne experienced the strongest gains during the first month of 2015, with changes in dwelling values of 1.4% and 2.7% respectively. Across the combined capitals, there was a monthly change of 1.3%.
The first auction clearance report for the year revealed clearance rates of under 70% for all major cities, with Sydney coming in at 66.7%, Melbourne at 67.3% and Adelaide at 56.3%.
Understandably for the first week back, the number of auctions in the capital cities has been low, with only 56 cleared auctions in Sydney out of 84 auction results.
RP Data notes however, that it’s the quarterly changes in dwelling values that give a much better indication of how the market is fairing, and during this period, Adelaide and Perth experienced gains of 0.3% and 2.2% respectively. The combined capital cities recorded a 1.9% gain.
The best performing capital city during the quarter was Hobart, with an increase of 4.4%.
But it’s Sydney that takes the cake when it comes to year-on-year changes, with dwelling values a whopping 13.0% higher. This also means that Sydney takes out the most expensive city, with median dwelling values sitting at $723,000. Melbourne has the second highest rate of capital gains over the past 12 months at 7.0%, and a median dwelling price of $561,000.
So will the market continue to ramp up in 2015?
RP Data’s head of research Tim Lawless says we probably won’t see the same capital gains results as last year.
“In a sign that housing market conditions are gradually cooling, the rolling annual rate of capital gain has been trending lower. At the end of January the annual rate of dwelling value growth across the combined capitals index had slowed to 8%, down from the early 2014 peak of 11.5%.”
Rolling annual change in capital city dwelling values
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