Australia drops down rankings in Knight Frank's Global House Price Growth Index
Australia slipped to 19th in the world for house price growth for the year to June 2020, according to the Knight Frank Global House Price Index Q2 2020.
In the same report for Q1, Australia had ranked 10th.
But it was still up 37 places from one year ago, when we were 56th, with negative growth over the previous 12 months of -7.4 per cent.
Over the last quarter, Australia was down -2 per cent, which made the house price growth 6.1 per cent higher for the year to date.
Topping the charts was turkey, whose 12 months change was up 25.7 per cent, with 11.2 per cent over the last quarter.
New Zealand was the best performing country in Asia Pacific, with growth of 9.1% over the past year, but it slipped in the rankings from 2 to 11 between March and June.
“While annual price growth in Australia has fallen slightly from the previous quarter, growth is still positive and 1.4 per cent higher than the average annual price change of 4.7% across the 56 countries and territories tracked in the index.
“Australia has dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic better than some other countries and territories around the world, with the length and severity of the lockdown not as strong, which partly explains its stable performance.
“However, it can also be attributable to the state of the housing market prior to the pandemic, with Australia’s market strong heading into 2020 with demand high and stock levels low.”
Knight Frank national head of residential Shayne Harris said Australia’s housing market has seen continued demand throughout the pandemic, but fewer transactions due to sellers choosing to ‘wait and see’ how the pandemic would play out.
“In Sydney the market continues to be underpinned by a severe shortage of stock for sale by both auction and private treaty,” he said.
“Whilst in the past eight weeks the difficulties around obtaining finance have seen the number of registered bidders thin out at auction, the clearance rate remains stable as do prices across the inner and middle rings of metropolitan Sydney.
“In Melbourne market conditions have been in steady decline for the past four months, with volumes and prices heading gradually south, although there was a very slight uptick in August.
“The cities second lockdown, combined with reliance on overseas immigration and education to support the market, could see these conditions continue beyond the other capital cities who are ahead of the curve in relation to recovery.
“In Brisbane quicker recovery from the pandemic than expected, combined with a tight apartment supply pipeline, has seen the Brisbane market emerge in a very strong position for 2021 and beyond.
“Coming off an extended period of low price growth Brisbane’s affordability is the best capital city side by side with Perth in the short to medium term.”
