Slow and steady dwelling price growth has made Brisbane immune to southern housing slowdown
THE proverbial tortoise of capital city home prices, Brisbane, has become “slowdown-proof”, new analysis predicts, thanks to its “slow and steady” capital gains.
With southern capitals now in the midst of a growth slowdown and investor pullback, latest data from industry analysis firm CoreLogic RP Data has put Brisbane in the safe zone.
The median dwelling price in Brisbane (which includes the Gold Coast) was $461,000, with the median house at $505,000 and median unit at $380,800, the CoreLogic RP Data Home Value Index found.
CoreLogic RP Data head of research Tim Lawless said Brisbane was looking good for continued growth.
“Brisbane is gathering momentum both in transaction numbers and level of buyer interest,” he said. “Brisbane is well set to continue its steady pace of growth. In the past 12 months it’s up by nearly 5 per cent.”
Signs were aplenty that southern markets had started to “lose some steam”, he said, with clearance rates trending lower and Sydney having its highest stock levels since mid-2012.
“Higher levels of housing stock means more choice for buyers which should ultimately result in some rebalancing towards buyers over sellers when it comes to negotiating on price.”
No such rebalancing was expected in Brisbane, where the prediction was a continued upward trajectory for several years, according to Mr Lawless.
“We expect there won’t be a downturn in the Brisbane market. It’s steady as she goes, particularly considering in the past 12 months we have seen a pick-up in jobs activity and rentals are also much higher,” Mr Lawless said.
Mr Lawless said while investors were beating in retreat in Sydney and Melbourne because of higher costs of property and debt, Brisbane could expect to see much more interest.
“There’s going to be a trend that investors will be targeting cities that are showing a much earlier stage in the property cycle and also a more balanced market like Brisbane and South East Queensland. I wouldn’t be surprised if we do see some additional investment in Brisbane and SEQ despite the fact that for investors the cost of debt has got higher.”
The Brisbane-Gold Coast rental yield result for both houses (4.4 per cent) and units (5.4 per cent), topped that of Sydney (3.1 per cent and 4.1 per cent) and Melbourne (2.9 per cent and 4.1 per cent).
In Brisbane itself dwelling values fell -0.2 per cent in September, though it was up over the quarter (1.2 per cent) and year-on-year (3.8 per cent).
Source: news.com.au – 2nd November 2015
