Property resale winners outstrip the losers
Indicative of the magnitude of the profits realised from property over the June 2017 quarter was property resales. Combined, resales earned sellers $18.2 billion in gross profits with the median profit recorded at $195,000. On the downside, gross resale losses totalled $469.6 million with the median loss recorded at $35,000.
The latest CoreLogic Pain & Gain June 2017 quarter report – www.corelogic.com.au/paingain (a national profit and loss analysis of property resales over the June 2017 quarter) showed that 89.8% of dwellings which resold over the period did so for more than their purchase price; a 0.3% increase from the March 2017 quarter result of 89.5%. Of the property types to resell over the period, houses scored top billing with profit gains of 92.1%, while unit resales achieved an 87.5% gain.
Owner occupiers were the biggest winners in the property resale stakes with overall profits estimated at 92.3%. Investors resales earned significantly less and recorded 88.1%; Sydney was the only major region of the country in where investors were more likely to resell at a profit than owner occupiers.
Across the combined capital cities, a significant gap in the proportion of profit-making resales was recorded by owner occupiers and investors in a number of cities; 93.7% of owner occupiers and 90.3% of investors resold their properties for a profit over the June 2017 quarter.
Proportion of total resales at a loss/gain,
houses vs. units, Jun 2017 quarter
CoreLogic research analyst Cameron Kusher said, “Investors were 4.8 times as likely to resell at a loss as owner occupiers in Melbourne, in Brisbane the figure was 2.8 times and in Canberra the figure was 3.5 times.”
Regional area resales also enjoyed a win. For the combined regional markets, 90.0% of owner occupiers and 83.7% of investors resold their properties for a profit over the June 2017 quarter. A greater proportion of owner occupiers continued to resell at a profit over investors. However, the same extreme differences between the vendor types as seen across some of the capital cities was not seen in regional markets.
Mr Kusher said, “For owner occupiers, the results show the benefits of selling in a buoyant market. In a falling market, owner occupiers may be more prepared to sell at a loss if they are purchasing their next home at an equivalent or greater discount. Because of taxation rules, investors may be more prepared to incur a loss because they, unlike owner occupiers, can offset those loses against future capital gains.”
“Should home values fall in the future, investors, which have been increasingly active in the housing market, may be more inclined to sell at a loss and offset those losses which in turn could result in much more supply becoming available for purchase at a time in which demand for housing falls because values are declining.”
Regions showing low profit-making resales continue to be headed by those linked closest to the mining and resources sector.
Mr Kusher said “While the June 2017 quarter results show a reduction in the proportion of profit-making sales in some of these regions, home owners seem willing to sell but there remains little demand to purchase in these regions which is resulting in a high proportion of vendors materialising losses. The regions with the lowest proportion of resales at a loss makes for interesting reading.
“The Sydney and Melbourne housing markets have been powerhouses over recent years however, regions outside but adjacent to Sydney are seeing a lower proportion of resales at a loss. Similarly in Victoria, Melbourne continues to see relatively few resales at a loss however, the proportion of loss-making resales is actually lower in both Geelong and Bendigo.”
