Key takeaways
April is a holiday month with Easter, school holidays and Anzac Day interrupting our housing markets.
However, last weekend's auction results confirmed the strength and the depth of our property markets - there were 1,952 auctions held on the weekend, roughly on par with the week prior (1,985), but returning a lower preliminary clearance rate of 72.7%.
Australia’s housing is so horribly undersupplied that I've rarely encountered a supply-demand inflection point like this.
Sydney property prices increased 0.1% over the last week, increased 0.3% over the last month and are 9.1% higher than they were 12 months ago.
Melbourne property prices remained flat over the last week, also remained flat over the last month, and are 3.0% higher than they were 12 months ago.
Brisbane property prices increased by 0.2% over the last week, increased 0.9% over the last month and are 16.0% higher than they were 12 months ago.
Overall, Australian capital dwelling prices increased by 0.5% over the last month and are now 9.8% higher than they were 12 months ago.
Our combined capital cities have increased in value by 10.2% over the last year. That's very different to the pessimistic forecasts of double digit price falls made by the RBA and many of the bank economists only 12 months ago
And it's likely property prices and rents are going to keep increasing throughout 2024.
This current property cycle has been driven by an undersupply of good properties relative to current demand pushing up property values and rents.
Recently Oxford Economics gave their home price forecast for the next three years, and as you can see from the table in the article, they are very bullish on how our housing markets are going to perform moving forward.