Property market update: Northern Beaches doing well
Sydney’s Northern Beaches is one region that has seen positive growth in 2019 plus there’s been an interesting development in searches for Australian property coming out of China.
The Northern Beaches area, according to the ABS’ statistical definition of the region, has had an annual rebound that shows that prices are improving in premium locations. But it is taking some time for this growth to reach lower-priced areas.
If we look at buyer demand on realestate.com.au, the Northern Beaches has the highest views per listing and coming in second is Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
We are also seeing high views per listing in Melbourne. It is highly likely this will be the next region to see positive year-on-year growth.
In Melbourne, house price growth in the inner city should continue to accelerate.
North east Tasmania is still performing well with annual growth to October 2019 of 3.7%. This part of Tasmania is still extraordinarily affordable.
Launceston itself is the most expensive with a median house of just $442,500 while Scottsdale, the town seeing the strongest growth (37%) has a median house price of just $245,000.
Regional Victoria is also continuing to do well with property prices in Ballarat increasing by 3.2% and Bendigo by 1.97%
Chinese search activity has now stabilised
Property searches from potential buyers in China has been falling for a long time now but for the first time since 2016 we saw a stabilisation in search rates in October.
This was particularly apparent in Melbourne and Sydney, the main markets where Chinese buyers have had a significant influence. Interestingly, there has been a significant increase in Brisbane and Perth, although these are off a low base.
Overall, search activity from overseas is now looking the most positive it has been for some time. There are likely a number of drivers for this.
Search out of the UK and Hong Kong continues to be driven by political uncertainty while more positive media around the performance of Australian property may be helping in China, Malaysia and Singapore.
Australian developers are also likely to be doing more marketing overseas, which also helps with search activity and ultimately buyer activity.
Clearance rates
There were 894 auctions in Melbourne and 609 in Sydney this weekend – still a lot less than the same time last year (1,124 in Melbourne and 844 in Sydney).
Melbourne’s clearance rate was quite a bit lower than expected at 71%.
While Sydney remained comparatively higher at 77%.
Ref: Nerida Conisbee (on 12 NOV 2019). Property market update: Northern Beaches doing well. Retrieved from https://www.realestate.com.au/news/property-market-update-northern-beaches-doing-well/
Images from realestate.com.au
