Property market records one of the quickest downturns ever
The latest property market downturn has become one of the shortest and shallowest on record, ending just three months after it started.
Dwelling values took a hit between November 2024 and January 2025, falling 0.4 per cent nationally, latest data from Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) shows, after a series of interest rate hikes and cost-of-living pressures weighed on buyers' hip pockets.
But in February, the month of the first interest rate cut in more than two years, the market started to turn around. The Reserve Bank cut the cash rate in February and May, to have it now sitting at 3.85 per cent.
Cotality's Home Value Index for May showed dwelling values have jumped 1.7 per cent over the first five months of the year. Values in every capital city rose in May, by at least 0.4 per cent. Sydney values rose 0.5 per cent in May, Melbourne was up 0.4 per cent, Brisbane 0.6 per cent and Perth 0.7 per cent.
Cotality research director Tim Lawless said the latest slowdown was more like a levelling-out of values, rather than an actual downturn, and was a lot less steep than the short downturns of 2020 and 2015.
Dwelling values fell 1.8 per cent between April and June 2020 (the start of the COVID-19 pandemic), before skyrocketing on the back of cuts to the cash rate that ultimately reached rock bottom at 0.1 per cent.
A similar, quick market turnaround also happened in 2015, when the Australian Prudential and Regulation Authority tightened lending criteria, particularly for property investors. Values fell 1.4 per cent in the December 2015 quarter.
'It really shows how much access to credit, or the ability to borrow money from the banks, can affect housing values,' Lawless said.
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Canberra Times
9 hours ago
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The Age
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Sydney Morning Herald
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- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Astonishing result': How super funds are faring amid Trump tariff volatility
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