Building approvals continued to crash in April, with unit approvals soft all year in Sydney and Melbourne. Unit approvals were -35 per cent lower than a year ago, with Sydney and Melbourne leading the plunge. House approvals are also declining across the board, with only the strong Adelaide market holding the line. Overall, building approvals…
The Reserve Bank could deliver a further 0.25 percentage point hike in the next few months, potentially as early as next Tuesday, after today’s CPI figures confirmed inflation has remained stubbornly high in some categories. In a mixed bag of results, the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows annual inflation increased from…
Strong tenant demand for capital city unit rentals and a shortage of available listings has drastically closed the gap between median house and unit rents, with the gap dropping from $64/week to $39/week in the space of a year. CoreLogic’s monthly Australian Unit Market Update shows growth across capital city unit rents continues to outpace…
Demand for dwellings has seen an impressive lift in the past two months. Evidence of this can be seen through increases in the CoreLogic Home Value Index, higher auction clearance rates, and a rise in the number and value of housing finance commitments reported by the ABS. What will the impact of rising demand have…
In a move aimed at assisting borrowers trapped in mortgage difficulties, the Westpac Group has announced a reduction in stress test requirements for certain refinance applications. Traditionally, banks subject borrowers to stress tests to ensure they can comfortably afford mortgage repayments even if interest rates increase by 3 percentage points above the applied rate. However,…
Consumer sentiment took a hefty knock this month, following on from yet another interest rate hike to a cash rate target of 3.85 per cent. Consumer sentiment in regional Australia in particular is knocking around record lows. House price expectations, on the other hand, have absolutely rocketed back from their lows of Q4 2022. The…
Australia’s property downturn continues to take its toll on premium regional markets that benefited most from the mass exodus away from capital cities during the height of the pandemic, with softer values, longer days on the market and bigger vendor discounts. CoreLogic’s quarterly Regional Market Update, which examines Australia’s 25 largest non-capital city regions, shows…
Overseas interest in Aussie properties has surged to record levels as migration hit its highest point in three years, according to the latest PropTrack Overseas Search Report. During the last quarter, the number of searches conducted from abroad for purchasing and renting properties on realestate.com.au reached an all-time high, surpassing previous records set since PropTrack’s…
The latest interest rate decision was always going to be a line ball; however, the 25 basis point lift will likely be the last in the most rapid rate hiking cycle on record. Although inflation has been trending lower since peaking in the December quarter of 2022, yesterday’s rate hike reflects the RBA’s uncertainty about…
After declining for most of last year, home prices have started to increase again in 2023, with April marking the fourth consecutive month of rises nationwide, according to the latest PropTrack Home Price Index. This is due to factors such as strong migration, limited supply, and tight rental markets, which are offsetting the impact of…
