According to a June 2019 survey from OpenAgent, 59% of vendors (home sellers) thought house prices were moving up, while 8% thought they were moving down.
This is a massive swing from March 2019, where only 34% of vendors thought prices were moving up and 25% thought they were moving down.
Over 3,300 Australian vendors were surveyed from April to June, with the remaining 33% of respondents believing prices will remain about the same until the end of the year.
Adelaide was the most optimistic of the capital cities, having the highest proportion of vendors thinking property prices will increase.
Sydney and Melbourne saw a bounce back from the majority of respondents thinking house prices were on the decline.
The majority of home sellers there now believe that house prices were on the rise, potentially due to an influx of investors.
OpenAgent data analyst Carson Teh said there are various factors that have contributed to the flux of optimism.
“With the political landscape becoming more stable, and no fear of negative gearing and capital gains tax policy changes, there has been an evident confidence boost in the housing market,” Mr Teh said.
“On top of the political certainty, there has also been decreased interest rates, looser credit lending restrictions and increased clearance rates that have benefited sentiment towards property prices.”
How will this affect house prices in the second half of the year?
Mr Teh said he expects this increased vendor optimism to continue into the next quarter of the year but doesn’t believe actual house prices will follow this trend.
“I’m thinking prices will level out rather than increase in the next six months,” Mr Teh said.
“Even though the auction rate is high, the volume is 30% below the three-year average, indicating supply is not picking up.
“We could potentially see an increase in demand from the local market.
“However, it’s less likely to see strong demand from overseas investors, as there are additional taxes on foreign buyers.”
What are house prices like in Australia?
Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash
According to CoreLogic’s Mapping the Market report, 10.6% of suburbs in Sydney had a median price of more than $2.6 million at the end of June 2019, compared to 3.2% in June 2014.
In Melbourne, 41.7% of suburbs had a median house value of less than $500,000, compared to 6.9% in June 2019.
Meanwhile the share of Brisbane suburbs with median house value under $500,000 shrunk from 52.4% in June 2014, to 40.3% in June 2019.
It was the opposite story in Darwin, where 30.5% of suburbs in June 2014 had a median house value of less than $500,000, in contrast to 65.9% in June 2019.
At the end of June 2019, 93.7% of Adelaide suburbs had a median house value of less than $1 million compared to 97.7% of suburbs five years earlier.
Persistent price falls in Perth saw a fall in the percentage of suburbs with a median house value over $1 million from 15.0% in June 2014 to 10.3% by June 2019.
The share of suburbs with a median house value of more than $500,000 in Hobart hugely increased from 8.8% in June 2014 to 50.4% in June 2019.
Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital Canberra, the share of suburbs with a median house value of more than $1 million has increased from 6.7% in June 2014 to 11.4% in June 2019.
You can check the median house value of your suburb via the full interactive report here.
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