Real estate agents in Australia are still bragging about how far their markets have come since 2020. The country’s hot property market ended 2021 with a bang as new data showed median house values across all capital cities exceeded $1,000,000 for the first time in history.
Yes, that’s right! Lift your jaw of the floor because Domain’s House Price report confirms the median house price in Australian capital cities is a whopping $1,066,133. Up over 25% on the year before.
Now once you’ve let that sink in – let’s break it down a little further.
The most recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed that among the eight major cities in Australia, Sydney’s unprecedented levels of growth equated to a 33.1% increase last year with the median price for houses now sitting at $1,600,467. This staggering number is punctuated even more when you consider that this equates to approx. $1,100 a day in capital growth.
How did the other markets across the country fare?
Melbourne property owners didn’t fare as well as our Sydney counterparts. However, the Melbourne market is showing signs of life after a stop and start year. A strong resurgence was seen at the end of 2021, following an extensive lockdown that paralysed buyer and seller sentiment. Melbourne finished the year with 18.6% capital growth taking its median house price to a tick of $1,100,000.
Real estate listings have skyrocketed towards the back end of 2021; therefore, we are starting to see signs of balance in supply and demand. This may take some of the heat off the market given there are more opportunities available to the purchasing pool.
Brisbane continues to shine for our clients as we reap the benefits of relative affordability and higher rental yields. The median house price in Brisbane started at almost 50% that of Sydney at only $600,000 in 2021 however is now performing at a higher % of capital growth than any other city in Australia. In the last quarter of 2021, Brisbane saw an impressive 10.7% rise in its housing market and we expect those numbers to continue throughout 2022.
As affordability constraints start to reduce the pool of purchasers in the southern states, history tells us that they’ll start to look for other opportunities. At this point in time, Brisbane, Adelaide & Perth are the obvious choice, however, Brisbane has a much stronger rental yield meaning investors should see Brisbane as having more “bang for buck”. Add into the equation the excitement about the 2032 Olympics and the enormous infrastructure spend that comes with it, it’s little wonder that Brisbane is the word on every investor’s lips right now.