Melbourne sees biggest quarterly dwelling price drop: CoreLogic
Melbourne was the only capital city across the quarter to record dwelling declines, the June release of CoreLogic's Hedonic Home Value Index found.
They saw declines of -0.9 per cent over the month of May, following -0.3 per cent declines in April.
Hobart bounced back strongly from being the only other capital in April to record losses, posting 0.8 per cent gains over May.
Only Hobart, Canberra and Adelaide didn't see declines in May.
Sydney's dwelling values dropped -0.4 per cent last month, the first time they've seen a decline since June last year.
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Transaction activity through May showed positive signs, with an 18.5 per cent bounce back in activity following a 33 per cent drop in April.
CoreLogic head of research, Tim Lawless, said “Considering the weak economic conditions associated with the pandemic, a fall of less than half a percent in housing values over the month shows the market has remained resilient to a material correction.
"With restrictive policies being progressively lifted or relaxed, the downwards trajectory of housing values could be milder than first expected.”
Consumer sentiment has been improving since early April, with the weekly ANZ Roy Morgan index rising consecutively for the past eight weeks, 42 per cent higher than when it bottomed out in late March.
Westpac's MI consumer sentiment index also rebounded 16 per cent from April to May.
Lawless says historically there has been a strong correlation between consumer sentiment and housing market activity.
“With consumers feeling more confident, households are better equipped to make high commitment decisions such as buying or selling a home", Lawless said.
"A lift in housing market activity should also support broader economic activity, with housing turnover providing positive flow-on effects to other sectors including retail, construction and banking."
Houses v Units
Melbourne's decline was driven primarily by houses, down -1.1 per cent compared to the -0.6 per cent felt in the unit market.
It was a similar story for Sydney, whose housing market declines (-0.6 per cent) outweighed the unit market (-0.1 per cent).
Darwin's unit market took the biggest hit across any market, down -2.9 per cent over May, however their unit quarterly figures are still 2.2 per cent up.
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