Less stock added to the market than last year: CoreLogic RP Data's Shana Miller
As at the week ending 25 October 2015, a total of 240,384 residential properties were listed for sale across the country.
Just over 40% of these (103,852) were situated in one of the 8 capital cities. In comparison to the same period last year, total listings are -2.6% lower nationally and -1.9% across the capitals. Relative to last year, the latest data also shows that the number of new listings being added to the market is lower, despite the number of new properties advertised for sale increasing on a rolling four week basis for the last four weeks.
Sydney and Canberra are the only two cities where the number of new property listings over the most recent four week period was higher than at the same time last year, albeit by only 0.3% in Sydney, and 3.7% across Canberra.
This result comes from 9,552 new listings added to the market in Sydney over the four weeks ending 25 October, compared to 9,526 one year ago and 720 residential Canberra properties added to the overall stock available for sale, compared to 694 over the corresponding four weeks one year ago. In all other cities the number of new properties listed for sale are lower relative to last year, with the largest differential seen in Perth (-22.4%), Darwin (-13.6%) and Adelaide (-12.0%). In particular, the data for Perth and Darwin indicates that home owners are likely aware of the weak housing market conditions and are therefore less inclined to put properties up for sale.
In terms of the total stock pool, across the residential capital city markets the results are more varied when compared to one year ago.
There are more listings this year compared to last year in:
- Darwin, 1,581 currently, 1,389 last year (+13.8%)
- Perth, 19,284 currently, 17,423 last year (+10.7%)
- Sydney, 22,564 currently, 21,609 last year (+4.4%)
All other remaining capital cities are showing less stock availability this year relative to one year ago:
- Hobart, 2,494 currently, 2,907 last year (-14.2%)
- Adelaide, 7,646 currently, 8,335 last year (-8.3%)
- Melbourne, 29,948 currently, 32,574 last year (-8.1%)
- Canberra, 2,184 currently, 2,370 last year (-7.8%)
- Brisbane, 18,151 currently, 19,288 last year (-5.9%)
Furthermore, last week we took a look at the current level of housing supply across each of the capital city markets. The analysis compares the absorption of stock by comparing the trend number of properties selling and the availability of stock for sale. The findings show that Perth and Darwin each have 6.8 months of housing supply on the market, the greatest of any capital cities, while stock levels in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne indicate less than 3 months’ worth of supply, showing that these housing markets are somewhat healthier than that of Perth and Darwin. On the flip side, Perth and Darwin’s market conditions are more favourable for those looking to buy a property with more choice and vendors becoming more willing to sell below the current list price to secure a sale.
Across the states and territories, the number of listings is lower than one year ago in all but two regions; Western Australia, where current stock levels are 7.1% higher than they were one year ago and Northern Territory, where the number of listings currently is 14.0% higher than over the same period in 2014.
At the other end of the scale, the Australian Capital Territory (-8.0%) and Victoria (-6.4%) are the two regions with the largest differential in listing volumes compared to one year ago, however, interestingly new listings across the Australian Capital Territory over the four weeks ending 25 October were higher than one year ago (+3.3%), while across Victoria they were -4.3% lower.
