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Five states experienced housing market growth in January, including NSW, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, according to market research group Residex.
The Northern Territory and Western Australia – outside of Perth, on the other hand, were the worst regional performers for the month, with both regions recording negative growth in the house, land and unit markets.
But long-time Bunbury, broker, Theo Krinos, says his office’s experience has been quite the opposite. While he notes that Bunbury is one of the larger cities in Western Australia and therefore possibly more similar to Perth than other, less populated areas, he says January was actually a bumper month.
“We’ve had two tremendous months in December and January. The only difference is that the loan sizes are better than they were six to eight months ago - we’re seeing a lot more confidence in the first home buyer market and a few more investors.”
#pb# In fact, Krinos estimates that January was one of the office’s ‘top five months ever’, after more than twenty years in business.
“I think finally people have realised that interest rates are good, the price of homes is pretty well to the bottom of the market, the confidence is growing – they’re not getting the bad vibes from Europe anymore either. I’ve noticed the clearing rates in Melbourne and Sydney last weekend were about 70% sold, so I think that reflects things across the board.”
Krinos says he expects local house prices to climb in 2013 and is interested to see how that affects investor interest.
“I think we’ve probably bottomed. I think it will probably stabilise for a while, but they can’t drop much from where they are now - we had a big jump in Western Australia a few years ago and now I think those prices have stabilised.”
#pb# For the year ending January 2013, the top performing suburbs in each country property market were:
Country New South Wales
Country Queensland
Country Victoria
Country Western Australia
Country South Australia
Country Tasmaina
