Queensland might be copping a beating in State of Origin, but in the property market, there is only one winner.
The latest PEXA Property and Mortgage Insights (PMI) report has seen the Sunshine State named as the fastest growing property market in Australia.
PEXA are Australia’s leading provider of digital property settlements and hold a 80% market share in conveyancing, giving them unique insights into transactions across the country.
“The big headline is Queensland,” said PEXA’s Senior Research Manager, Mike Gill. “Looking at the last 12 months, we’ve seen that Queensland has recorded the highest growth of the mainland Eastern states. Queensland was up 37% year on year and recorded over 200,000 property settlements in the last 12 months, so huge growth in that market.”
“Traditionally, Queensland hasn’t benefitted from the growth that we’ve seen in the other Eastern states: for the last five years, prices have plateaued there, in contrast to what we’ve seen in Melbourne and Sydney in particular. It’s good to see the fantastic growth we’re seeing the Queensland market currently.”
“The growth has come from the metro markets. The Greater Brisbane area was up 53% in that period, and that is where the Queensland growth is driven.”
If Queensland were the big winners, Victoria was perhaps the loser, although in Australia’s booming property market, everything is relative.
“We can also compare against some of the other states,” said Gill. “Victoria was a slightly different story. As a state, it did grow 11% in the last financial year compared to the previous one, and in most years, that would be a really respectable growth number. But when you compare to Queensland and New South Wales, Victoria lags.”
“When we drill down to the next level to see what has actually happened in the Victoria market, it’s a tale of metro v regional.”
“In the Greater Melbourne area, property settlements were down 2%. With the impact of that second lockdown in latter 2020, the metro market was really impacted by the difficulty for buyers and sellers to transact. In the same period, we saw the regional market grow 28%, making that the driving force in Victoria.”
“That points to lower property prices and the trend for city buyers to favour regional areas given the more flexible working environments and the lifestyle benefits.”
