While housing growth in capital cities such as Sydney and Melbourne has been in the spotlight lately, figures show rural areas are seeing higher demand and strong price growth.
According to the latest Bendigo Bank/REIA Real Estate Market Facts Report a number of regional areas saw housing price growth soar by 15% or more in the last quarter.
Dennis Bice, executive retail of
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank says housing growth has been strong across many areas of Ausrtalia.
“Not all of this quarter’s property buying activity was in Australia’s capital cities. Australians are also enjoying great quality of life and attractive, affordable properties in many of our regions.
“Cities such as Newcastle and Wollongong in NSW are being re-discovered, and with good reason, contributing to higher demand and strong price growth. Compared to the September quarter of 2012, apartments in these centres recorded 16.5 per cent and 13.1 per cent respectively.
“It’s a similar story in Geelong which recorded house price increases of more than 15 per cent compared with last year In Bendigo, apartments recorded 11.3 per cent growth for the quarter and in Cairns, apartments recorded a 10 per cent increase."
In other regional areas, prices for houses in South Australia’s Riverland were up 15 per cent and in Mandurah, Western Australia, apartments picked up sharply to record 13 per cent growth over the quarter.
The weighted average median capital city house price in Australia for the September Quarter is now $562,503 or a rise of 3 per cent since the June quarter. Apartments now average $460,315 which is an increase of 2.2 per cent over the same period.
Melbourne was again the leader in terms of city house prices, with a rise of 7.3 per cent for the quarter or 15.0 per cent compared to the September quarter of last year. Sydney recorded a 4.2 per cent increase for the quarter and 11.7 per cent for the year.
Median house prices up:
Sydney 4.2% to $722,718
Melbourne 7.3% to $590,000
Brisbane 0.2% to $442,125
Hobart 1.4% to $352,000
Median house prices down:
Adelaide 0.7% to $397,000
Perth 3.8% to $505,000
Canberra 0.1% to $510,000
Darwin 1.1% to $605,000
