Despite many forecasters predicting widespread declines in residential property values across Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic, property values have remained resilient through April according to recently released data from CoreLogic.
As we expected to see, there was a substantial reduction in the volume of auctions and sales.
Capital City Overview For April
Sydney held the strongest residential property market with dwelling values up 0.4% in the month which is a 14.3% annual increase, following the 18% correction recently experienced from 2017-19 [1].
Brisbane and Adelaide posted solid growth numbers for the month, but the big surprise was Darwin with values down -2.7% annually, jumped 1.7% over the month. Hobart was a major region to record a decline in home values in April.
CoreLogic Head Of Research Tim Lawless says:
“Hobart has the most exposure of any capital city, at least proportionally, to the industry sectors most heavily impacted by COVID-19 in terms of employment, with 12.7% of the workforce employed within accommodation & food services, and arts & recreation services sectors."
Sales Activity In April
April has proven, as we have stated in previous publications, that reducing volumes of sales activity will not necessarily see plummeting values.
Well-positioned property markets are strongly supported by heavy demand. Even in this climate.
Nerida Conisbe, the Chief Economist for the REA Group has recently observed that listings are down, but buyer search activity is up [2].
Since the weekly low over a month ago, buyer search activity on realestate.com.au has increased by 46% nationally and is now flowing through to buyer enquiry. Enquiry is now up 24% compared to the same time last year [3].
While the connection between buyer enquiry and transactions is not an exact one, it does show greater intent to purchase than searches alone.
Many factors are driving this uptick including a relatively low number of active COVID-19 cases, a stable banking system, incredible levels of government stimulus, and importantly, the gradual opening of the economy.
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Adam Duffy - Partner at Meridian Australia
P: (02) 9939 3249
References
[1] CoreLogic
[2] REA Group
[3] Realestate.com.au