Melbourne Property Market Update – December 19, 2014

Photo Source: http://www.noeljones.com.au/

Last week’s trend continues in areas where the property market is softening. Peter Sarmas explains, more property sales are occurring before auctions take place and an increased number of property auctions are being passed in and negotiated rather than sold under the hammer.

Industry research firm BIS Shrapnel unveils where the best value suburbs are ranked in Sydney according to their price against the ease with which residents can walk to shops, station and other amenities. The dollar per walk score measures the median house price of individual suburbs in which at least 10 property sales have taken place in the past six months. 

Australian Construction Industry Forum (ACIF) released its Construction Market Report for December 2014. Fortunes among various participants within the building and construction sector throughout Australia in 2014/15 are set to vary according to the geographical location and sector in which contractors are operating, according to the latest forecasts. 

What are the economic factors to watch for in 2015 that may impact the housing market? The combined capital city housing markers have seen values increase by 7.0% over the first 11 months of 2014.  Throughout the whole of 2013, capital city home values increased by 9.8% indicating that the rate of home value growth is likely to be lower this year than last.

What is Melbourne’s most expensive suburb? According to CoreLogic RP Data, Melbourne now has 52 suburbs with a median house value in excess of 1 million dollars.

2014 was a stronger year for auctions than 2013. The market may have cooled since the start of spring but that won’t prevent the overall clearance rate for 2014 exceeding last year. In 2013 the capital cities clearance rate was 66.2 per cent and with one week to go this year it is 67.9 per cent. With the exception of Melbourne and Perth the clearance rate has risen in each capital city.