Sydney apartment insights: What happened to Sydney apartment values in November?

Sydney is approaching a point in the real estate cycle where growth in apartment values is nearly matching the growth in the housing market, CoreLogic's monthly Hedonic Home Value Index found.

Apartment values rose 0.7 per cent over November, compared to the one per cent gains in houses. For context, across March this year, Sydney houses posted double the growth of apartments, 4.3 per cent in a single month compared to 2.1 per cent for apartments.

Sydney apartment values are now 15.3 per cent up over 2021, just over half of the nearly 30 per cent gains for houses. That's stretched the median gap between apartments and houses in the harbour capital to $523,000.

Sydney's median apartment value is now $837,000, compared to $733,000 at the start of 2021.

Although values are continuing to rise across the country, the November result was the softest outcome since January when values rose 0.9 per cent.

Tim Lawless, CoreLogic’s research director, says the slowdown in the pace of growth is due to a number of reasons.

“Virtually every factor that has driven housing values higher has lost some potency over recent months," Lawless noted.

"Fixed mortgage rates are rising, higher listings are taking some urgency away from buyers, affordability has become a more substantial barrier to entry and credit is less available.

“With such a large value gap between the broad housing types, it’s no wonder we are seeing demand gradually transition towards higher density housing options simply because they are substantially more affordable than buying a h​ouse."