Everything you need to know about the state of Australia’s property markets in 20 charts – September 2024

Key takeaways

CoreLogic estimates the combined value of residential real estate rose to $10.95 trillion at the end of August.

The pace of quarterly growth has continued to ease, to 1.3% in the August quarter. This is down from 2.0% in the three months to April of this year, and down from 3.3% in the June quarter of 2023.

The change in home values continues to be highly varied across the capital city markets. In the August quarter, mid-sized capitals Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, alongside Sydney saw values increase, while Canberra, Darwin and Hobart declined.

CoreLogic estimates there were 40,428 sales in August, taking the national annual count to 513,067. This is 9.3% above sale volumes last year.

The time it takes to sell property has trended a little higher relative to one year ago nationally. As with capital growth trends, selling conditions vary depending on the market. Properties are selling quicker than a year ago in Perth and Adelaide, with the median selling time at 11 and 27 days, respectively.

The vendor discounting trend has compressed at the national level compared to last year. Sellers in Darwin (-4.6%) continue to offer the largest discounts across the capitals, followed by Hobart (-4.1%), while stronger selling conditions in Perth has seen the median vendor discount fall to -2.6%.

In the four weeks to September 1, new listings totaled 39,994 nationally. Despite winter being a seasonally slow period, the flow of new listings is trending 4.0% higher than last year, and 16.7% higher than the historic five-year average.

While total listing levels have remained fairly subdued, the unseasonably high flow of new listings has seen stock levels accumulate, with the total listing count rising from around -25% below average at the start of 2024 to -12.4% below average.

Capital city auction activity trended higher over August. Despite the additional supply, the combined capital cities clearance rate averaged 64.3% over the past four weeks.

Annual growth in rent values slowed to 7.2% nationally, reflecting an incremental easing in the rate of rental growth at a high level. This easing is reflected across the capitals, with the exception of Hobart and Canberra, both of which saw rents decline in 2023.

Dwelling approvals were up 10.4% in July, the highest monthly uplift since May 2023, and largely driven by a 33.7% lift in unit approvals. The house segment saw a modest lift of 0.3%.

The value of new housing lending secured rose 3.9% in July. The rise was driven by a solid lift across both owner occupier borrowing (up 2.9%), and investor lending (5.4%). Despite interest rates remaining elevated, the value of residential lending has steadily increased, with the July result being 26.5% higher than this time last year.