Units resold more often at a loss than houses everywhere but Sydney: CoreLogic Pain and Gain
Nationally, 8.0 percent of houses and 12.7 percent of units were resold at a loss over the September 2016 quarter, according to CoreLogic's latest Pain and Gain report.
The property data firm says that splitting this out across the capital cities and regional areas shows that for houses, 5.6 percent resold at a loss in the capital cities and 11.7 percent resold at a loss outside of the capital cities.
For units, 10.2 percent resold at a loss in the capital cities compared to 18.4 percent across regional areas of the country.
Sydney was the only major region nationally in which the proportion of units sold at a loss over the September 2016 quarter was lower than houses.
In many of the regions analysed the difference was significant with Melbourne, Brisbane, regional NT and the Australian Capital Territory recording a proportion of loss-making resales for units that was more than double that of houses.
The historical data indicates that it has been extremely rare for resales of houses to record a higher proportion of loss than units.
This is reflective of the fact that house values have typically increased at a more rapid pace than units.
It is also reflective of the fact that historically houses have recorded high buyer demand against a backdrop of constrained supply.
In a market like Sydney where more units have been built than houses over the past two decades - and the gap between house and unit prices is substantial - CoreLogic noted the trend had changed recently with units proving less likely to resell at a loss than houses.
