CoreLogic’s national Home Value Index (HVI) notched a 0.6% increase in March, mirroring February’s growth and marking the 14th consecutive month of rising housing values.
The national HVI has surged 10.2% since its decline in early 2022, pushing dwelling values to new records each month since November last year.
Despite the overall uptrend, Tim Lawless (pictured above), CoreLogic's research director, highlighted the diversity in city performances.
“Perth’s housing market where values were up 1.9% over the month, followed by Adelaide and Brisbane with 1.4% and 1.1% growth,” Lawless said. “The remaining capitals are showing much lower rates of change, although Melbourne is the only capital city to record a negative quarterly movement, down -0.2% over the first three months of the year.”
The national quarterly growth rate quickened to 1.6% in Q1 2024 from 1.4% in the previous quarter. Despite this acceleration, growth has moderated since mid-last year, reflecting impacts from rate hikes, cost-of-living pressures, and housing affordability challenges.
But putting upward pressure on home values despite the headwinds, Lawless said, was the continuing demand for housing amidst supply shortages.
“Housing remains in short supply, and purchasing demand is high due to interstate and overseas migration rates that are well above average,” he said.
This demand, coupled with varying affordability across cities, explains the diverse growth outcomes.
The strongest growth has now shifted to the lower quartile in most capital city markets, a trend mirrored by regional markets.
In the combined capital cities, home values in the lower quartile rose by 3.1% in the first quarter, outpacing the 0.7% increase in the upper quartile. This pattern of more robust growth in the lower value segment was consistent across all major capitals.
“With housing affordability becoming more challenging ... it’s no surprise to see demand being skewed towards the lower end of the value spectrum,” Lawless said.
While regional housing markets also saw value increases, regional Victoria experienced the softest growth, with values down -0.3% in the first quarter of the year.
The volume of home sales in Q1 was 9.5% higher than last year, indicating a recovery from the previous downturn, CoreLogic reported.
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