Property price growth stagnates

The latest research from RP Data fund capital city home values have now risen by 1.6 per cent over the last three months.

After recovering by one per cent in June and 0.6 per cent in July following the RBA’s back-to-back rate cuts, dwelling values across Australia’s combined capital cities were unchanged in August.

At the end of August, dwelling values across Australia’s combined capital cities were down just 0.6 per cent in the first eight months of the year compared to a 2.2 per cent year-to-date loss in May.

The year-on-year numbers have also shown a substantial improvement. Dwelling values were down 2.4 per cent at the end of August compared to 5.3 per cent in May.

Dwelling values in both Sydney and Melbourne both increased by 0.1 per cent over the month of August, with the two biggest capitals recording 2.4 per cent and 2.5 per cent capital growth, respectively, over the last three months.

RP Data research director Tim Lawless said Sydney is proving to be one of the most consistent performing capitals this year.

“Sydney dwelling values have increased over five of the past eight months providing a cumulative capital gain of 1.9 per cent over the year to date,” he said.

“The big question is, ‘can this growth be sustained?’ On the one hand, winter is seasonally slow, so these results have been encouraging.

“On the other hand, we know that there is likely to be an increase in new supply over Spring, which may introduce some headwinds for a recovering market. How the market plays out over the Spring season will be an important litmus test for its resilience.”