The Olympic Games are still a few months away, but Australia’s already breaking new records.
This time it’s CoreLogic’s Home Value Index taking to the podium, recording a rise of 8.9% to reach a record-breaking high in February. With the national median dwelling increasing by approximately $63,000 over the past twelve months, it now stands at $765,762.
According to data collected using CoreLogic’s interactive Mapping the Market tool, of the 4,625 house and market units analysed nationally, 4,087 of them saw values rise over the year to February. That’s 88.4% – AKA “Almost 90%” in our headline. It’s also a steep increase from the 52.9% of markets recording rises in July 2023, where 2,456 of 4,640 suburbs saw positive annual growth.
Surprisingly, for once, it wasn’t Sydney’s property market that saw the most widespread value uplift across both houses and units. Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth actually recorded the biggest rises, with all of Brisbane’s 312 house and 167 unit markets analysed seeing rises year-on-year.
East Perth, an inner-city suburb of WA, was the only market in the state’s capital to record a decline (-0.8%) in house values. In Adelaide, the suburb of Black Forest was the only market to see values fall over the year to February (-0.4%), while the coastal SA suburb of Glenelg South saw unit prices decline by -1.8% over the same period.
But what about Sydney?
We’re not far behind. Of the 559 suburbs analysed for an annual rise in house values, 551 (98.6%) saw a rise, while for units, 299 of the 308 markets analysed (or 97.1%) saw growth. Throughout the year, Sydney also recorded a broad-based rise in values with just 17 of the 867 markets analysed recording a decline in value. Meanwhile, almost 50% recorded value increases above 10%. Over the three months to January, 55.1% of suburbs increased in value, lifting again to 69.8% in the three months to February.
And it’s not just house sale prices rising faster than sea levels, with Sydney rents also posting record growth. Using the same CoreLogic data, analysis found that 94.2% of the 4,030 house and unit markets analysed recorded an annual rent rise. A whopping 99.6% (528 out of 530 suburbs analysed) of houses in Greater Sydney recorded an annual increase in rents, and 99.3% for units.
After a year of rate hikes, declining affordability, and rising cost of living, you might think values would be, at best, treading water. But thanks to a dire undersupply of housing stock and a migration fuelled demand for property, values continue to climb. Reflective of this ongoing disparity between housing supply and demand, the broad-based capital gains reported in the past 12 months have managed to keep unfavourable conditions from weakening the market.
