State of the Melbourne Real Estate Market

By Janet Spencer

While the Melbourne property market is cooling as growth is slowing, prices are still going up for some properties in certain locations. Unlike Sydney, Melbourne’s median house price has risen to $880,902 over the recent quarter according to a Domain Group report. The $880,902 figure is $100,000 more than last year.

Where there were 5 or 6 eager buyers at auctions a year ago, in late 2017we are now seeing 1 or 2 only.

Melbourne has now experienced consecutive growth in every quarter for the last five years, although the recent growth is the lowest in three years at 1.3%. Growth is expected to continue through to 2018.

Overall, average auction clearance rates remain steady around the 70% mark with the North East of Melbourne experiencing the highest quarterly and yearly growth for units at 10.4% and houses at 21.0% respectively. The inner urban units are not performing at -2.4% quarterly and 0.3% annually. Inner urban houses are at -2.4% quarterly and 10.8% annually.*  *source – Domain State of the Market Report September 2017.

When it comes to clearance rates and auction numbers since September, clearance rates have been lower in the last quarter of 2017 yet we’ve had about 1,334 more properties auctioned this year versus the same period last year. The average clearance rate across the 11 weeks recently monitored is 73% this year vs 78% last year. (data supplied by the REIV)

Weeks ending October 8th and November 18th showed the biggest disparity vs the previous year.  October 8th saw a 7 percentage point difference between clearance rates with similar stock levels up for auction, while 18 November saw an 8 percentage point difference in clearance rates but 329 more homes on sale this year. Notably, the 29th of October this year had very high stock levels on auction (1788) and a 73% clearance  compared with 78% clearance rate last year with 531 properties auctioned).

So, if you want to take advantage of slightly softened market conditions, call Buyer Solutions and make buying a property your New Year resolution.  Put a property in your Super Fund, have a portfolio review and buy another investment property or even nudge your children into the property market in 2018.  The key to successful buying is to know where to look as some suburbs are still performing very strongly.  We want the right property at the right price always at Buyer Solutions.

Buying property, Expatriate Aussies, First home buyers, Home buying, Housing Affordability, Housing Market, Investment, Investment property, Overseas Buyers, State of the market

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