Australia home prices rise for 14th straight month
AUSTRALIA’S home prices rose for a 14th straight month in March, according to property consultant CoreLogic, with prices climbing in all Australian capitals except Northern Territory’s Darwin.
CoreLogic figures showed prices nationally rose 0.6 per cent in March from February, on par with a jump of 0.6 per cent in the earlier month.
March’s result took the current upswing in housing values through its 14th straight month of growth, CoreLogic, a property data provider, said in a statement.
Every capital city recorded a rise in dwelling prices over the month except Darwin, where prices were 0.2 per cent lower, it said.
“At one end of the scale we have Perth’s housing market where values were up 1.9 per cent over the month, followed by Adelaide and Brisbane with 1.4 per cent and 1.1 per cent growth. The remaining capitals are showing much lower rates of change,” CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless added.
After a 25 per cent surge during the pandemic, average house prices in Australia tumbled 9 per cent from their peak but clawed back almost all of that last year even though the Reserve Bank of Australia hiked the cash rate to a 12-year high of 4.35 per cent.
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The central bank, which kept rates steady for a third straight meeting in March, is widely expected to hold well into the second half of 2024.
Despite higher interest rates, cost of living pressures and worsening housing affordability, “an undersupply of housing relative to demand continues to keep upwards pressure on home values”, Lawless said.
“Housing remains in short supply and purchasing demand is still high due to interstate and overseas migration rates that are well above average,” he said.
Property analysts forecast a 5.0 per cent rise in Australian home prices in 2024, according to a recent Reuters poll. REUTERS
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