CoreLogic National housing market update [video] | April 2024

Last month's 0.6% lift in national home values marked the 14th consecutive month-on-month rise, taking the index 1.6% or about $12,000 higher in the March quarter.

Since declining 7.5% in the downturn between April 2022 and January 2023, the national home value index has increased by 10.2%, adding approximately $72,000 to the median value of a home and pushing to new record highs each month since November last year.

The national quarterly pace of growth accelerated from 1.4% in Q4 last year to 1.6% in Q1 this year.

Though housing values are rising faster than at the end of last year, the quarterly trend has halved relative to the middle of last year when home values were rising at 3.3% quarter-on-quarter.

Rate hikes, cost of living pressures and worsening housing affordability are all factors that have contributed to softer conditions since mid-last year.

However, an undersupply of housing relative to demand continues to keep upwards pressure on home values despite these headwinds.

The monthly movements in housing values across our capital cities continue to be punctuated by diversity.

At one end of the spectrum, we have Perth, where housing values are up 1.9% over the month, followed by Adelaide and Brisbane with 1.4% and 1.1% monthly growth.

The remaining capitals are showing much lower rates of a change, although Melbourne is the only capital city to record a negative quarterly movement, down 0.2% over the first three months of the year.

After being led by the upper quartile, most of last year, the strongest growth conditions have migrated to the lower quartile across most capital city markets.

Across the combined capitals, lower quartile home values increased by 3.1% in the first quarter of the year, compared with a 0.7% rise across the upper quartile of the market.

This trend of stronger conditions across the lower-value sector was evident in each of the major capitals.

With housing affordability becoming more challenging and borrowing capacity lower than a year ago, it's no surprise to see demand now being skewed towards the middle to lower end of the value spectrum.

Regional housing markets are also recording a rise in values with similar levels of diversity as their capital city counterparts.

Regional Victoria stands out with the softest growth conditions, with values down 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, the only broad rest of the state region to record a decline in values through the year to date.

Demand for housing has been holding up well, despite the higher cost of debt and low sentiment.

Home sales through the first quarter of the year were estimated to be 9.5% higher relative to Q1 last year, although the comparison with a year ago is from a relatively low base, with the housing market bottoming out from the downturn at the beginning of last year.

Compared to the previous decade's average for this time of the year, dwelling sales are estimated to be 3.7% higher.

ALSO READ:

Perth Housing Market Update [Video]

Adelaide Housing Market Update [Video]

Sydney Housing Market Update [Video]

Brisbane Housing Market Update [Video]

Melbourne Housing Market Update [Video]

About Tim Lawless Tim heads up the Core Logic RP Data research and analytics team, analysing real estate markets, demographics and economic trends across Australia. Visit www.corelogic.com.au